


What Goes On Inside

by LulaIsAKitten



Series: Denmark Street musings [33]
Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Army Strike, Badass Robin, Case Fic, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Prison, RMP, Rowntree is a Good Boy, Strike whump, Strike’s past catches up with him, There will be smut at some point, and plenty of pining, kind of, lord help me I have no idea where this is going, please don’t look too closely at the mesh weave of this plot, probable plot holes, to hide a real one, vaguely reminiscent of The Capture if you squint, witness interrogation techniques of Robin Ellacott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:02:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 60,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25018216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LulaIsAKitten/pseuds/LulaIsAKitten
Summary: An incident from Strike’s past catches up with him.
Relationships: Ilsa Herbert & Cormoran Strike, Nick Herbert & Cormoran Strike, Robin Ellacott & Ilsa Herbert, Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Series: Denmark Street musings [33]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1035698
Comments: 565
Kudos: 185





	1. The Gallery Opening

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write one scene, and the plotting of the backstory of how that scene could come about created this. I have never attempted to write something case-related, so please bear with any plot holes. Let’s just enjoy the ride and not scrutinise too closely...

“God, I’m bored,” Strike muttered in Robin’s ear as they moved along to the next work and stood, pretending to admire a plain blue square on the wall. His voice, low enough not to carry over the murmur of voices and the clink of champagne glasses echoing across the room, sent a shiver down her spine that she refused to acknowledge. Not the time or the place. This might be a social function, but for the two detectives it was strictly business.

Robin took a sip of champagne and cast her eyes around the room again. Still no sign of their mark. It wouldn’t do to appear as though she were looking for someone, so she pretended to catch the eye of a distant bystander and lifted her fingers in a little wave, keeping her gaze deliberately unfocused enough to prevent any of the guests crowding the swanky Bloomsbury gallery from thinking she was making eye contact with them. A flutter of camera flashes near the door suggested a minor celebrity had arrived. The small quantity of press who had been allowed in, equally bored, were competing heavily for the top picture of the night.

“I know,” she replied as they moved on to the next piece, a long rectangle of slightly asymmetric black and white zigzags. They regarded it, and Robin tipped her head on one side a little.

“It’s not hung straight,” she observed. “Is that deliberate?”

“It must be,” her burly partner replied. “A place this expensive doesn’t hang things wrong on the opening night of a new exhibition. Heads would roll.”

His certainty reminded Robin suddenly of Charlotte, Strike’s ex, and she wondered if the other woman was here. There was nothing in his demeanour to suggest that she was, but then he was inscrutable at the best of times.

A waiter glided past, and Strike reached out. The waiter paused while Strike set his empty glass down on the proffered silver tray and selected another. Robin, her glass still almost full, raised an eyebrow at him.

“I thought you didn’t like champagne,” she teased, banishing the spectre of Charlotte as they moved again, drifting more towards the centre of the long room, pausing near a pillar. She didn’t miss the sweep of Strike’s gaze, encompassing the whole gallery in a swift take.

“I don’t,” he replied. “But I don’t suppose Doom Bar would be forthcoming even if I asked, so it’s all there is. No sign yet.”

Robin nodded a little, her eye snagged by a woman clicking past them in tall heels and a sweepingly elegant scarlet jumpsuit. She looked stunning, and Robin was very glad suddenly that she had worn the green Vashti dress. She’d worried it might be over the top for the occasion, but all the women were in incredible outfits. The room was a glittering mass of colour, as though it had been taken over by tropical birds. The men were mostly in varying shades of dark grey and navy, although this was the art world; she’d spotted some bolder colours on them too, from a stunning purple through to contrasting stripes and even one that she was sure was sequinned from the way it sparkled even at a distance. Dressed as he was in his navy Italian suit, with a shirt that rode the line between pink and purple, Strike fitted in perfectly. She was struggling to keep her eyes off him and focus on the task at hand.

Next to her, Strike stiffened slightly, and Robin, ever aware of his body language, felt her senses spark to alert. She didn’t move, knowing that to suddenly turn to follow her partner’s gaze might draw attention to them or to their mark.

“What’s he doing here?” Strike muttered, and the note of confusion in his voice almost made Robin turn to look.

“Who?”

“Wardle,” Strike replied. “Bizarre place to see him. And not with April.”

Robin finally did turn to look, and as she did so, Strike’s hand touched her elbow. “The doors.” His voice was low enough to be almost a whisper.

There were three doors into the gallery, the huge main central doors that led out into the atrium and a smaller door at either end. At each of them, surprisingly burly men in dark suits had suddenly appeared. They were doing a very poor job of looking like they belonged in the art world. A frisson of alarm skittered down Robin’s spine.

DI Eric Wardle was walking straight towards them. He was in no hurry, his steps measured, but he clearly wasn’t here to look at paintings.

Strike downed the rest of his champagne and set the glass down on the floor next to his foot. Her heart rate increasing, Robin placed hers, still almost untouched, next to it. She was feeling distinctly uneasy suddenly in a way that had nothing to do with the rather formal atmosphere and everything to do with the hyper alertness radiating from Strike and the almost predatory steps of the policeman approaching them.

“Wardle,” Strike acknowledged their friend and acquaintance with an incline of his head. The detectives shook hands, and Wardle reached past him to Robin.

At the last social occasion they’d all attended together, Wardle’s colleague and Robin’s friend Vanessa Ekwensi’s birthday drinks, the policeman had kissed her cheek warmly, but now he extended a hand for her to shake too. “Business, not pleasure,” he explained, a touch ruefully.

“What kind of business?” Strike’s lazy words were belied by the tension that perhaps only Robin would have read in his large frame. She wished she could see his expression, but he was turned slightly away from her as he faced Wardle, and it would be too obvious for her to lean to look. She kept her eyes on the policeman’s face, saw the hint of regret slide across it, there and gone, swiftly replaced by a bland, innocuous gaze.

“I was hoping you’d agree to pop down to the station,” Wardle said. “Got some people who want to talk to you.”

“Who?”

Wardle glanced around uneasily. “Redcaps,” he muttered.

Strike went very still. “What?”

Robin glanced up at him anxiously. “What does that mean?”

“Military police,” Wardle murmured, still keeping his voice low. “Gooner’s old bosses.”

Robin blinked. Strike had been out of the Army for years.

“What do they want?” she asked, her brows knitting.

Strike sighed, and Wardle looked at him sharply. “You know why they’re here.” It wasn’t a question.

Strike nodded tightly. “I’ll be down first thing,” he said, and raised an eyebrow as Wardle shook his head infinitesimally. “They want me tonight? After we’re done here?”

“No, mate, they want you now.” Wardle glanced around again. Robin noted with alarm that a couple more men in dark suits had appeared at the main doors. “To tell you the truth, it was a hefty compromise that I’m here. They only consulted me because this is my patch, they were going to march in themselves.”

He paused, glancing from Strike to Robin and back again. “I assured them I could bring you in with the minimum of fuss.”

Robin’s eyes grew rounder. “Why would there be a fuss?” she demanded, louder than she had intended. A nearby knot of people turned to look, and Strike shot her a glare that cut into her very soul. His eyes were fierce, but there was a trace of— fear? —in them that made her heart lurch powerfully in her chest. Her eyes prickled hot and she blinked fiercely. Bursting into tears was not a professional reaction to the situation they suddenly found themselves in.

“Keep your voice down,” Strike hissed. He turned back to Wardle, took a slow breath. “What if I refuse?” he asked conversationally, but there was the faintest hint of danger in his tone. Robin’s heart was hammering in her chest now.

Wardle glanced towards the main doors, from where at least three badly-disguised policemen were watching him, waiting for a cue. “I don’t advise that as a course of action,” he replied quietly.

Strike cast his eyes around the room as well and gave a small, derisive snort of air through his nose. “Five heavies and you, to bring in a guy with one leg?” he growled scornfully. “What am I going to do, run?”

Wardle shrugged. “Sorry, mate, they insisted,” he replied. He hesitated, and reached into his pocket. “And—”

Robin spotted the flash of cold metal a moment later than Strike, and it took her another moment to understand. “You’re going to handcuff him?” she cried.

There was no mistaking now that something was going on. Silence followed by a ripple of murmuring spread around the room. Heads craned to look.

Strike swung to Robin, and his voice was low and urgent. “I know what this is,” he said swiftly, “and they’re wrong. Call Ilsa.” His eyes sought hers, willing her to understand, and tears spilled onto Robin’s cheeks suddenly.

“Cormoran—” she whispered.

“No time to get sappy, Ellacott.” His sharp tone was at odds with the softness in his gaze. “Ring Ilsa, tell her it’s time. Tell her it’s about Cyprus.”

“She— She knows?”

“Gooner—” Wardle took the big detective’s arm, and Strike shook him off impatiently.

“She knows a bit, but she’s got the file.” His voice was a low, urgent mutter now. “She was keeping it for me—”

“Strike—”

Everyone was looking now as the policeman took Strike’s arm again, trying to bring his wrist around behind him.

“In a minute!” Strike exploded suddenly, anger in his voice as he wrenched his arm out of Wardle’s grip. “Good God, man, give me one minute to explain this to Robin, won’t you?”

Silence fell. Two of the dark-suited policemen had suddenly drifted a lot closer. The room held its breath.

Strike turned back to Robin, gazing helplessly at her, and she stared back. There was nothing more that could be said without several dozen people overhearing.

Robin scrubbed a hand across her face, smudging tears and mascara. “I’ll call her.”

“Tonight. Immediately.”

Robin nodded, sniffing.

“Right,” Wardle said firmly. Robin was sure she heard him mutter, almost under the edge of hearing, “sorry, mate,” and then he took a deep breath.

“Cormoran Strike, I am arresting you on suspicion of falsifying evidence and perverting the course of justice—”

“You’re _arresting_ him now?” Fresh tears sprang to Robin’s eyes. Strike closed his, turning away from her distraught expression, allowing his wrists to be pulled behind his back and cuffed together. Wardle rattled on.

“You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?” He gazed up at Strike, and all trace of the “mate” was gone, only official, stiff Metropolitan Police demeanour remaining in his frame.

Strike glared. “Yes.”

Wardle nodded tightly. “Let’s go, then.” His hand on Strike’s upper arm, he swung him and started walking him across to the main doors. The crowds parted before them in a way that would have been comical in almost any other circumstance.

Robin was frozen. Should she follow? Leave? Clearly the Strike and Ellacott agency’s current job was over for the evening. It seemed almost absurd that, not ten minutes ago, they’d been bored, waiting for their mark, sipping champagne, and she’d been trying to keep her eyes from—

Strike stumbled a little, and Robin jerked into action, her feet moving, following them. Fierce anger gripped her suddenly. She was furious that Wardle, who knew about Strike’s disability, would handcuff his hands behind his back, disrupting his balance and increasing his risk of falling and injuring himself. She trotted after them, had almost caught up when her way was suddenly blocked by one of the burly, suited policemen.

“Not too close, please, ma’am,” he said, respectfully but in a voice that left no doubt that this was an order and not a request.

Ahead of her, Strike ducked his head to avoid the camera flashes, but there was nowhere to hide. Wardle marched him briskly through the atrium, and now Robin could see police lights winking and rotating on the roof of the plain black vehicle waiting immediately outside the front door. Her path blocked, she stood and watched helplessly as Strike was taken out of the doors and across to the waiting car, ducking away from more camera flashes. Wardle pulled the door open and Strike turned himself, dropping backwards into the seat with the policeman’s hand on his head preventing him from colliding with the doorframe.

The big detective glanced up as he pulled his legs, one and then the other, into the back of the vehicle, and his eyes met Robin’s across the atrium. He was too far away, his face half in shadow, blue lights flashing and fracturing in the glass gallery doors as they swished closed, for her to read his expression, but she felt the jolt to her core as their gazes met. Then the car door slammed, and in a moment Wardle had climbed into the front and the car slid from view. He was gone.

The policemen holding her at bay fell away, moving through the crowds, assembling and heading for the front door. Behind Robin in the main gallery, an excited buzz of gossip struck up. No doubt everyone had quite the story to tell when they got home tonight, she thought angrily.

“Are you okay?” A timid voice at her elbow, a brief impression of blonde hair, a sky blue dress. Another little flurry of camera flashes from ahead of her.

Robin turned away. She was the only entertainment left now, for the guests and the paparazzi.

“Fine,” she muttered, and hurried across to the door that opened into a corridor leading down to the ladies’. She shouldered her way through, ignoring a squeak of protest from a tiny, silver-haired lady with birdlike features coming the other way. Robin hastened down the hallway to the bench outside the door to the toilets, long and low and cushioned. She dropped onto the nearest end, and sat and took a few deep breaths to compose herself away from prying eyes. Her surroundings had all but faded from view. All she could see was Strike being led away in handcuffs, Strike gazing into her eyes, that hint of— surely not fear? His anger, Wardle’s implacability. That last, brief look. The _handcuffs_.

Sniffing, she pulled her mobile from her little clutch bag with shaking hands. It took her a few goes to find Ilsa Herbert’s number and ring it. She kept missing the buttons with numb, clumsy fingers.

Ilsa answered almost immediately.

“Done?”

Robin nodded miserably. “It’s done.”

“Did people see?”

Robin barked a harsh laugh through a throat that was tight again suddenly. “Yes, people saw. Everyone bloody well saw.”

“But— that’s good, right? That was what you wanted?”

Robin burst into tears.


	2. The Cold Light of Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments! I’m having such fun with this, though I’m still not sure where we’re going. This chapter is brought to you by the plot holes that no, there isn’t a military prison in London, but Colchester is too far for all the visiting that needs to happen, and no, I have no idea if they would house a disabled prisoner with able-bodied ones or what they’d do about his leg that could clearly be used as a weapon... bear with 😂😂
> 
> Rating change for Strike-canon language.

Robin awoke early and lay and looked up at the skylight of Strike’s tiny bedroom in his flat. She should have gone home last night; it had been foolish to come here when the press might well arrive by this morning, looking for more gossip. But she’d been so thrown by the way their evening had ended, so upset and off balance, that she’d gravitated here to Strike’s space, to his smell, to the bed where they’d spent so many pleasurable nights lately. She kept no pyjamas here - she didn’t need them, Strike had assured her with a cheeky wink - and so was wearing one of his old T-shirts, surrounded by the essence of him. Her work clothes from yesterday hung neatly on the back of the bedroom door.

She would need to get down to the office early. She had a meeting about the case that last night had launched, and none of its participants or the temporary secretary they’d hired to help Robin in Strike’s absence knew about the new relationship between the two detectives. They weren’t keeping it a secret, exactly, they just...hadn’t told anyone yet. And now wasn’t the time for such a revelation. She’d just have to pretend she’d arrived before everyone else.

The alarm clock on Strike’s bedside unit told her it was a little after seven. She’d slept badly, fitfully, rage at Wardle and worry for Strike chasing one another around her brain. Again and again, she kept coming back to the hint of fear she thought she’d seen in his eyes. Had she imagined it in her own alarm at the way the situation had escalated? He had no reason to be afraid. This case had been planned to the hilt, every detail covered.

It was Graham Hardacre who had got in touch. Years ago, on their second stint in Cyprus investigating the infiltration of drugs into the Army, he and Strike had run a complex case that neither had ever forgotten. They’d been drafted in halfway through, taking over work that had been done imperfectly by junior colleagues out of their depth with the complexity. The case had been a mess, they’d reminisced over pints in the Tottenham. Key pieces of information had been missing.

According to both Strike and Hardacre, though neither had been able to prove such at the time, an attempt at a double-cross had taken place. Gary Faulkner, their colleague who was supposedly liaising locally to get the drugs into the base under the guise of conducting his own investigation into the matter, was to be used as bait and then hung out to dry afterwards by his superiors. The bust had been successful, but the evidence that would have put Faulkner behind bars too was mysteriously absent when the moment came; somehow Faulkner had walked away scot-free, which Strike and Hardacre had agreed was, at the time, a fair result.

However, Hardacre had continued, his voice low over his second pint as he filled Strike and Robin in, he’d gone on to commit a series of other misdemeanours, all somehow below the radar, until he’d finally been arrested and tried for another drugs case and was currently serving a stint in a military prison. He would reach the end of his sentence soon, would be released and dishonourably discharged.

“So?” Strike had asked, taking another pull of his pint. “What’s that got to do with us, or Cyprus?”

Hardacre had cast him a sideways glance. “You know what they all thought back then.”

Strike had grinned. “That we ‘lost’ the evidence that would have put him away? No proof.”

“Well, no,” his former colleague had conceded. “They did have to admit we’d taken over a badly managed, badly researched case. There was nothing to tie him to anything.”

Strike had shaken his head slightly. “Because he wasn’t guilty. In that particular case.”

Hardacre had shrugged. “The powers that be, and particularly Chambers, were sure he was.”

“Chambers was a first-class cunt who was looking for a scapegoat,” Strike had opined, and then his gaze had flicked to Robin. “Sorry.”

She’d shrugged. He didn’t normally use his coarsest language in her presence, but she had three brothers. It wasn’t like it was anything she hadn’t heard before.

Hardacre had laughed. “That he was,” he’d conceded. “And still is probably, wherever he is. Some big shot in Germany now, I think. Anyway, we’re pretty sure that Faulkner is part of something bigger, and once he’s discharged and gone, we’ll lose our chance to prove it. So we had an idea.”

“Which is?” Strike had asked mildly, his light tone not fooling Robin for a moment. He was intrigued, she could tell.

“Sling you in a cell with him and see if he’ll talk. He liked you.”

Robin had choked slightly on her wine. “Excuse me?” She set her glass down with a thud. She’d kept out of the conversation thus far. “Put Cormoran in a military prison?”

Her protests, her attempts to put some brakes on the idea, had been met with an implacable wall of determination. Fired up from the thrill of bouncing ideas around with his old colleague, nostalgic for their partnership, intrigued by the idea of helping the Army out and weeding out a complex case, Strike was keen to do this, she could see. Nothing Robin could do or say was going to make a difference.

It had caused a discussion between them later that night that was the closest thing they’d had to a fight in their burgeoning relationship. Strike’s jaw had set; he wanted to take the case. Hardy had asked him, he’d said, and he owed him. Robin had suggested, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice and cursing herself for the tears gathering behind her eyes, that a few leads here and there and the chance to garner some classified information to help in the Shacklewell Ripper case was hardly a debt that needed repaying with a stint in prison. Strike had pointed out that Hardacre would owe him a lot of favours after this. Robin had questioned the cost, the danger. Strike had scoffed a little, assuring her he’d be perfectly safe undercover.

They hadn’t shouted, but Robin’s stiffness and Strike’s irritation at what he saw as her insistence on seeing danger where there was none had brought them to an impasse; he’d stamped off down to the office to smoke while she sat on the edge of his bed and shed a few tears and contemplated going home for the night. She was just pulling on her coat when he’d come back up, conciliatory, apologising for being grumpy but assuring her there was no danger, giving her his best boyish grin. She’d acquiesced and they had fallen into bed, pulling at one another’s clothing; after even such a not-argument, the sex had been even more spectacular than normal. Afterwards, wrapped in Strike’s arms, listening to his familiar snores as he slid into sleep, Robin had told herself this was his world. He knew it, and if he said it was safe - and he trusted Hardacre implicitly - then she must swallow her instincts and concede.

Almost half past seven. Robin supposed she really must get up. She rolled over, burying her face in his pillow, breathing the scent of him deep into her lungs. A smile crept across her face. She’d changed here last night rather than go home, and Strike had done his best to persuade her to take the green dress back off again, insisting they had time before the gallery opening, his breath hot on the back of her neck as he slid the zip down, his fingers tracing the line of her spine— Heat pooled low in her stomach at the thought. She half wished, now, that she’d let him, although they would have been disgracefully late for the start of the evening. They wouldn’t see each other for weeks now, depending on how long this case took.

She sighed and dragged herself out of bed to go and shower. She had Wardle and Ilsa as well as Hardacre coming in this morning for a debrief on last night and to plan the first steps. She resolved to set aside her worry about her partner and focus on getting this case to a conclusion as fast as possible. A chain of events had been set in motion now that they couldn’t stop.

Uneasiness followed her into the shower and through her morning routine, making her skin prickle. She wished Strike hadn’t taken this case.

 _You just miss him,_ she told herself firmly. _Keep business and pleasure separate. We promised we would._


	3. The First Meeting

Ilsa had been hoping to get to Robin first that morning to check that she was all right, but by the time she arrived at the offices of Strike & Ellacott, Graham Hardacre was already there.

Robin, sat behind Strike’s desk which she would be taking for the duration of the case, looked pale but composed, Ilsa thought. She made the introductions, and the three engaged in polite, slightly stilted small talk while they waited for Wardle. Hannah, the temporary secretary who had been hired to do the admin and answer the phones while Robin ran the entire business with Barclay and Hutchins as backup, brought mugs of tea. She was young and blonde, more attractive than Robin would have liked, but her easy charm had barely been noticed by Hardacre. She set the teas down with a smile and went back to the desk that was usually Robin’s.

Time stretched, and still no Wardle. Impatient, Ilsa finally asked, “So what exactly happened last night?”

She had got very little out of Robin on the phone. She’d been shocked to hear how upset her friend had been at what had sounded like the successful implementation of a carefully laid plan. Hardacre had been specific about the publicity needed. For Strike to achieve success in his current mission, he needed to be in a state of disgrace with all authorities. It had been a stroke of genius to send Wardle, whose name had been linked to Strike’s on previous high-profile cases. Robin had agreed that yes, they had indeed got plenty of attention from the press, while she snivelled a little and wiped her eyes. Curious passers-by kept stopping to offer her a tissue or ask if she was all right; eventually, frustrated, she’d said goodbye to Ilsa and left the gallery.

Robin pressed her mouth into a thin line now. “Nobody stuck to the script—” she began, just as the outer office door swung open again. Eric Wardle had finally arrived, ten minutes late. It irritated Robin how long he managed to linger in the outer office, chatting to Hannah and grinning, trying to make her laugh. Robin drummed her pen on her notebook, and eventually Wardle came through, setting down a cardboard tray containing four takeaway coffees and offering an apology for his tardiness. He had a roll of newspapers tucked under his arm.

They all stood, and hands were shaken again. Ilsa had hitherto met neither of the men who were working with Robin on this case, although she had heard Strike speak of both. Wardle was the taller and better-looking, slim with his chestnut hair and dark eyes, his trendy leather jacket. Hardacre was considerably shorter, not much taller than Robin, with thinning, nondescript hair. Ilsa imagined with a trace of amusement that he and Strike must have made an odd couple investigating cases together. Strike was nearly twice the size of the slim man in front of her. He’d spoken highly of his former colleague, though.

Introductions completed, they began to sit. Robin had collected the spare chair from the outer office too, and they were all crowded around Strike’s desk, the coffees in the middle. Robin had a notebook at the ready, and so did Ilsa. Still standing, Wardle passed the coffees round to murmurs of thanks. He had to wrestle the last one out of its cardboard socket to set it in front of his own chair.

The policeman pulled the roll of newspapers from under his arm and slapped them down onto the desk with a self-satisfied flourish. “Job done,” he said, sounding almost proud, and finally sat. He picked up his coffee and watched the others expectantly.

The papers had unrolled and flopped flat. Robin shuffled them apart. Two of the popular tabloids, both carrying small pictures next to their more mainstream front-page splashes, small grainy inserts that showed Strike being escorted, cuffed, from the gallery. Excited, exclamation-marked print promised salacious details inside.

Robin flicked to the story in the first paper while Hardacre reached for the second. She scanned it quickly. The relevant elements were there, albeit stretched in an attempt to make it look like it was a bigger story than it was. Gleeful descriptions of the “scuffle”, as they were calling Strike shaking Wardle’s hand off. Pictures of him handcuffed and “dragged” away. A grainy shot with herself the background, “hauntingly elegant in emerald green” with the mascara smudges visible. Lurid speculation about what Strike might have done to warrant such treatment, and at the end, a shot of Robin “fleeing” to the ladies’. She rolled her eyes.

“Couldn’t have written it better ourselves,” Wardle said, clearly delighted.

Anger that she had battled with all night, that around dawn had settled cold and hard in the pit of Robin’s stomach like a stone, flared up again. With an effort, she kept her voice level.

“What exactly were you playing at last night?”

The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees. Hardacre and Ilsa both sat back a little, Ilsa watching with interest, Hardacre still ostensibly reading his article but alert suddenly, listening.

Wardle sat back too, regarded Robin over his coffee. “We weren’t being conspicuous enough. People weren’t looking. I had to up the ante.” His voice was cool.

It was an effort to stop her hands closing into fists. “We never discussed you handcuffing him, or placing him under arrest.” Out of the corner of her eye, Robin saw Ilsa’s surprise stiffen her frame; she kept her gaze on Wardle’s chiselled features, disliking his slightly smug air and taking no small satisfaction from the way the gleam was fading from his eyes as he realised her seriousness. “You and maybe a couple of officers to be seen escorting him from the premises, that was all we agreed. Why on earth did you need _five_ guys as backup?”

Cornered, knowing he was in the wrong, Wardle went on the defensive. “That part wasn’t my fault. I brought my own two, and the SIB insisted on sending their three.”

Robin swung to face Hardacre, her eyebrow raised. “Graham?”

The investigator reluctantly stopped pretending to read his newspaper, and met her steely stare with a shrug. “I wasn’t there. I can’t be seen to be too close to this one, you know that. Faulkner will know it’s a setup if I’m on the scene. But it’s not unusual to send someone from our side too.”

“Or three someones, apparently,” Wardle muttered. Robin turned back to him with a glare. The policeman held up his hands in supplication.

“Hey, it’s not like you two stuck to the agreed plan either,” he complained. “Gooner wasn’t supposed to resist me bringing him in. What was all that about?”

An image of Strike’s face, his eyes boring into hers, that hint of fear she could have sworn she’d seen, drifted into Robin’s mind, and something suddenly clicked into place in her head. _He was trying to tell me something. Something wasn’t right._

She stared at Wardle, replaying the conversation in her mind, looking for the key to unlock what was going on. She said slowly, “He said the bit about knowing what this was about, and that they’d got it wrong. We agreed that.”

“That’s made it in here,” Hardacre interjected, waving at the paper in front of him. “‘As he was led away, Strike could be heard insisting that there had been a misunderstanding,’” he read. “‘Eyewitnesses said he appeared to be telling his assistant”’ —Robin winced; when would it ever be accepted by these people that she could be a full partner in the business rather than merely an assistant, an attractive accessory, a bystander?— ‘“to consult a colleague or perhaps a lawyer.’ Well, they got that part kind of right.”

“And he said it was about Cyprus...” Robin went on.

Hardacre scanned the rest of the article he was reading. “No mention here.”

“No, nor in the one I read,” Robin said.

“But then he went off track,” Wardle said triumphantly. “What was all that stuff about Ilsa knowing about it, and having a file? He made it sound like there really was a Cyprus file.”

Sat to his right, Ilsa snorted. The other three turned to look at her.

“Sorry,” she said, grinning. “That’ll be a red herring.”

Robin’s brows knit together. “What do you mean?”

Ilsa shrugged. “The Cyprus file. It’s not work-related.”

Silence fell over the cramped office. Robin blinked.

“Wait a minute,” Hardacre said suddenly, leaning forward, his voice low. “Are you telling me there actually _is_ a Cyprus file? Where?”

Ilsa gazed around at them all and laughed a little. “Yes, there’s a Cyprus file,” she replied. “And it’s in a drawer in my study, it’s been there for years. But it’s not what you think.”


	4. The Cyprus File

“It won’t have anything to do with this,” Ilsa insisted. “It’s...personal.”

Wardle took a big slurp of his coffee and glanced across at Hardacre.

“So what’s in it?” The SIB investigator asked. “And why have you got it?”

Ilsa shrugged. “He gave it to me years ago,” she replied. “Asked me to look after it. And it’s just...personal correspondence.” Her cheeks were tinged slightly pink.

There was a slight pause, and then Robin asked, “So it’s not like a work file?”

“Well, it kind of is,” Ilsa conceded. “It’s a slim folder, a grey one.”

“Like we used for all the cases back then,” Hardacre interjected.

“But it’s not work,” Ilsa insisted again.

“Then what is it?”

Ilsa hesitated, looking around at them all.

“It must be important, Ilsa, or he wouldn’t have mentioned it to me specifically,” Robin said softly.

Ilsa sighed and nodded.

“He gave it to me years ago,” she began. “When he came out of hospital after he lost his leg. He’d decided to leave the Army, he’d got all his stuff out of storage and was moving in properly with Charlotte. Nick and I were helping him, we had the car. And he gave me the file and asked me to look after it.”

She hesitated once more. Robin wanted to curl her hands into fists again. She forced herself to be patient.

“It was just the one file,” Ilsa went on. “It’s really slim, not much in it. It’s letters, he said. Personal letters, between him and someone he was dating in the Army.”

“Tracey,” Hardacre put in.

“That was it,” Ilsa nodded at him. “He said he didn’t want to lose track of them, for old times’ sake, but that he couldn’t have them in Charlotte’s flat.” She shrugged. “I guess it was possible Charlotte would find them accidentally. Or deliberately,” she muttered.

Robin frowned at her. “So he asked you to keep them?”

Ilsa shrugged.

“Did you look at them?” Hardacre asked.

“No! I wouldn’t read someone else’s letters!” Ilsa’s voice was indignant. “Besides—”

“Besides what?” Robin asked sharply, wondering what Ilsa wasn’t saying.

Ilsa flushed. “He said they were...intimate,” she replied. “He winked at me and said I probably shouldn’t look, that they’d sent each other...pictures. They were apart for a while, I think.”

Hardacre nodded. “Tracey was with us in Cyprus for a bit, but then they sent her back to Germany to investigate a rape.”

Ilsa nodded. “Yeah, so they were like love letters, I guess, and...more. I got the impression it was the pictures that he particularly wanted to keep.”

Wardle bent his head to his coffee, sniggering a little. Suppressing a stab of irritation, Robin asked, “So you just kept them?”

Ilsa shrugged. “Yeah. It was...” She trailed off and started again. “It was a weird time,” she said, slowly. “Corm was just out of hospital, Charlotte was back on the scene, Nick had had some problems at work. Things were...” She stopped. “I just shoved the file in a drawer in the study and forgot all about it.”

She paused. “He mentioned it a couple of times, used to joke that I held his life in my hands. Charlotte was insanely jealous of other women.”

Hardacre was staring at her now. “So you never even opened the file?”

“No!” Ilsa said again. “Why would I?”

“To see if it really is love letters,” Robin said slowly. Hardacre nodded.

Ilsa looked from one to the other. Wardle had stopped smirking.

“What else would it be?”

Hardacre rasped a hand across his face. “There were key pieces of information missing from the official Cyprus files,” he said slowly. “Specifically, the stuff that implicated Faulkner.” He hesitated. “We worked the case together, but Oggy went through the file first. We had to pick it all apart, practically start again, it had been done so badly. He said the missing pieces were never there.”

Wardle looked at him. “You think they’re in that file?”

Hardacre shrugged.

“But why?” Robin asked. “Why would he take evidence out of an official case? Surely that was against protocol?”

Hardacre sighed. “Like we said, it was a complicated situation,” he replied. “The guy I told you about, Chambers, was pretty crooked himself, but he was clever. You don’t get that high up the ladder without knowing how to at least appear to keep your nose clean. He was determined to pin the whole thing on Faulkner.”

He set his empty coffee cup down on the desk. “He was adamant that there was evidence against Faulkner. He was furious at the end, once we’d closed the ring and arrested the local fence, that Faulkner was off the hook. Blamed us for screwing up the investigation, tore strips off us.” He shrugged. “Oggy was implacable. Said the evidence was never there, and that the lackeys we took over from had made the mistakes.”

“Hang on,” Wardle broke in. “So this guy might have been guilty all along?”

Hardacre shook his head. “He wasn’t,” he replied. “The only evidence I saw was circumstantial. Not enough to prove his involvement beyond being used as bait.”

Wardle snorted. “Doesn’t make him innocent.”

“True,” Hardacre conceded. “But we were sure he was being set up. We just couldn’t prove it. We reckoned that Chambers had planned to hang Faulkner out to dry over it—”

“But why?” Robin asked again. “Why would he do that?”

“He was a cunning bugger,” Hardacre replied. “And nobody likes the SIB. We’re officially all on the same side, but somehow we get labelled as traitors for insisting that our own side follow the rules as well. He tried to pin some stuff on us, too, after. Said we’d falsified evidence—”

“—which is why that was the reason for the arrest,” Wardle broke in.

“Yeah, and there was no proof of that, either,” Hardacre finished. “It was all a mess. In the end the top bosses pulled Chambers out and sent him to Germany, and we moved on.”

There was a pause. Robin sipped the rapidly cooling dregs of her coffee, thinking. “But if the evidence was there, and Cormoran took it, why? And then why keep it?”

Hardacre shook his head. “No idea why he’d take it, and not tell me,” he replied. “But why he’d keep it... Insurance, I guess?”

“Against what?”

“Against the case ever being opened again? It depends on what’s in there.” Hardacre turned to look at Ilsa. “We need to look in the file.”

Ilsa stared around at them all. “Wait,” she said. “So you’re saying you actually think that that’s what the file is?” She paused in horror. “I’m a member of the bar, I work for one of the most prestigious law firms in London. You’re telling me that for all these years I’ve been hiding stolen, classified military documents?”

Hardacre shrugged a little.

“So you think he lied about the contents?”

Wardle grinned. “It stopped you opening it.”

“And also worrying, if you didn’t know what was really in there,” Robin added slowly.

“I’ll bloody kill him,” Ilsa muttered. “If anyone found out— My whole career—”

“I suggest you don’t look in the file,” Hardacre said. “As far as you know, it’s just personal correspondence.” He thought for a moment. “Oggy and Tracey might have discussed the case. It could just be that simple, there might be clues in the letters. Give me the file, I’ll read it. Then as far as you’re concerned, it was only ever love letters, which you’ve then handed to me in case they were useful. If I find anything else... Well, you’re covered.”

Ilsa sighed and shook her head. “Still going to have words when this is over,” she said darkly.

“It might really just be letters,” Hardacre repeated.

“Then you’re in for a treat,” Wardle grinned at him.

Hardacre chuckled, shaking his head. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to trawl through someone’s smutty correspondence looking for clues,” he replied ruefully. “It’s a funny old job. And if that’s all it is, I’ll give them back,” he added.

“There’ll be something in there,” Robin said. “He was very sure I should contact Ilsa and ask her about the file, and he said that you knew a little.” This last remark was addressed directly to her lawyer friend.

Ilsa shrugged. “Only that it’s SIB-related, and it was important enough to him to want to keep them,” she replied. “I honestly haven’t thought about them for years. That folder must have been sitting there since 2007.”

There was a long, thoughtful silence.


	5. Planning

“Okay,” Robin said briskly. “Let’s focus on the reason for today’s meeting. What’s the plan? Where’s Cormoran now?”

Wardle sat forward. “Right,” he replied. “I took him in last night, processed the paperwork and handed him over.”

Hardacre nodded. “Records show he went straight to the Glasshouse at Battersea,” he told them all. “They’ll stick him in a holding area for a couple of days, then find him a cell. Probably not with Faulkner immediately, it would look odd. But on the same wing so their paths cross.”

He turned to Ilsa. “So you’re going to go in first, as his lawyer,” he told her. Ilsa nodded. “If he’s still in a holding cell— Well, anywhere, in fact, just remember walls have ears and we can’t break his cover. We all have to proceed as if this is a normal case, and let him feed information to us.”

“And Robin, you’re the girlfriend,” he went on, and Robin nodded, willing her cheeks not to go pink. Ilsa grinned.

“Can’t be too much of a hardship, pretending to be dating Corm,” she said.

Wardle was smirking again. Robin replied coolly, “Cormoran and I have pretended to be a couple for cases before. We’re comfortable with it.”

Hardacre nodded. “So we’ll get you in quite quickly too, as business partner and romantic partner,” he said. “You and Ilsa will go in fairly regularly, keep track of everything he says, we’ll see what we can piece together.”

He looked at Ilsa again. “And if we need to, we can send your husband in.”

Ilsa nodded. Wardle frowned. “Why on earth would that be necessary?” he asked.

“More private in the medical wing,” Hardacre replied. “More hands-on. If Oggy needed to get anything physical to us, or if, say, we wanted him to wear a microphone or something, that would be the way to get it in and out. We’ve got a few key people primed to turn a blind eye,” he explained, “but obviously the more people who know, the greater the risk of blowing his cover. We’ll register Dr Herbert as being the one to contact for anything relating to his leg, that’ll be the official cover story.”

He turned back to the policeman. “I don’t think we’ve got any legitimate reason to send you in, other than your right to keep an eye on what’s going on in terms of him being a civilian in a military prison.”

Wardle huffed an agreement. “Yeah, normally we’d be kicking off, demanding a civilian be housed in the civilian system, complaining that you’re trampling all over our jurisdiction. He’s not yours any more.” He grinned. “But yeah, we’d do that from the outside and through his lawyer.” He nodded at Ilsa.

“Okay,” Ilsa said. “So I’ll try and get in to see him this afternoon or tomorrow,” she said. “Just an initial meeting to find out what he’s actually been charged with and assure him loudly that we’re trying to get him moved to a civilian facility.”

Robin nodded. “And I’ll ring and cry at them a bit and beg to visit my boyfriend.” She had to force the word out, hoped fervently that no one had noticed. She hadn’t really got her head around thinking of Strike as her boyfriend in real life yet, let alone in this bizarre pretend situation they found themselves in.

Wardle smiled. “You did an impressive job last night,” he said, and Robin felt her cheeks heat up at the rare compliment. Hardacre glanced at the picture of her in the paper, tear-stained and tense.

Robin shrugged. It wouldn’t do to let any of them know how genuinely upsetting she had found it to see Strike arrested and handcuffed. “Playing roles is part of the job,” she said lightly.

“What else are we doing from the outside?” Ilsa asked.

“The press,” Wardle said. “They’re on at me for a statement this morning. We need to feed them the right snippets, the papers will be read in prison. And they’re outside here already,” he added. “They’re keeping it subtle, but I saw a couple.”

A sinister shiver ran down Robin’s back. She hated to be watched, even more since the Shacklewell Ripper case. Ilsa smiled at her.

“Corm moves in with us when the press are on his back,” she said. “Spare room’s always available.”

“Thank you,” Robin replied. “But the business is a bit too big to run from your sofa these days. I’ve got Hannah, and Sam and Andy coming in and out, and all our other clients will proceed as normal. I’ll just ignore the press, they’ll go away in a day or two.”

“But,” Hardacre broke in, “if I’m going to be involved, we need to meet away from here. Like I said, can’t risk having me near the case.” He looked around. “I’ll likely get away with it this once, but I’d better not come here again after I leave today, or to your office, Ilsa.”

“Meetings at my house, then?” Ilsa suggested, and everyone nodded.

“And you give the press a short statement just saying you arrested him on behalf of the Army and handed him over, blah blah blah, historical case, falsifying evidence, can’t say any more because it might jeopardise legal proceedings, blah blah,” Hardacre said to Wardle, who nodded tightly. Robin felt a flash of amusement. Wardle liked to give orders, not receive them.

Silence fell again.

“Right. Are we done?” Robin asked. As Strike’s business partner, it seemed to have fallen to her to chair the meeting.

Everyone nodded again.

“Okay,” she said briskly. “So, Ilsa will try to visit today or tomorrow. I’ll go in as soon as I can. Eric, you’ll feed the press a bland statement. And we’ll meet again on...Monday evening? Hopefully Ilsa and I can report back then, and you can collect the file from Ilsa, Graham.”

Hardacre nodded, standing and reaching for his coat. “Don’t open the file,” he warned Ilsa. “Ignorance isn’t much of a defence, but it’s all you’ve got.”

“Can’t wait to get rid of it,” Ilsa replied, standing too. “I’d better check it’s actually still where I think it is, I haven’t seen it in years.”

Wardle was already on his feet, shrugging his jacket on. “I’ll be in touch,” he promised, shaking hands all round again. He squeezed Robin’s fingers gently as he relinquished her hand. “He’s a tough git,” he told her. “He’ll be fine.”

Robin nodded, feeling an inexplicable urge to cry at the unexpected gesture, and then Wardle was gone, pausing only to say something to Hannah on his way out that made her giggle.

Hardacre shook Robin’s hand too. “He is,” he agreed, “and sharp as a nail and a good judge of people and a bloody good boxer, too. He’s not in any danger.”

“I know,” Robin replied, but the unease still hung over her.

“Are you okay?” Ilsa asked her in a low voice as Hardacre left, bidding Hannah goodbye and clicking the half-glass door closed behind him. His booted steps echoed away down the metal staircase.

Robin sighed. “I don’t know, Ilsa,” she said honestly. “I’ve just got this...feeling. The way he was when Wardle arrested him— I don’t know.” She trailed off and shrugged. “Something’s not right.”

“They’ll look after him,” Ilsa said stoutly. “Graham will pull him out if there’s any trouble. He’ll be back before you know it, stomping about and smoking in his office and eating all the biscuits like he always does.” She gave Robin a brief, fierce hug.

“I know.” Robin nodded firmly as she returned the hug, trying to convince herself. “He’ll be fine.”

Ilsa grinned, and with a little wave she was gone.

Robin moved across to the window and watched. The press briefly tried to approach Wardle to ask him questions, but he waved them away irritably. Hardacre left without incident. Ilsa, also unrecognised, managed to leave too without being accosted.

Robin stood for a long time, idly watching the paparazzi and thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The pace will pick up soon, I promise. About to have some leave, so plenty of time to write.


	6. Ilsa visits Strike

Ilsa sat at the metal table in the small, echoey room in the Battersea Military Correction Facility. She was well used to going into prisons to interview clients who had been recently arrested or whose bail applications had been refused, but she’d never been inside a military prison. Most elements of it were the same. The table and the chair she was sat on were bolted to the floor. A small CCTV camera watched her from high in a corner.

She set out her paperwork. She didn’t have much, but she had prepared a file as she would for any client, to make the encounter authentic. Her dictaphone sat next to it. She’d never shed the habit of using it. Some places didn’t like you using your mobile phone, but most accepted the small recording device.

Heavy footsteps approached down the hall, and then the door opened and Strike was followed into the room by a warden. Ilsa looked up at him, and her eyebrows rose in surprise. He was in basic Army uniform, fitted camouflage gear, neatly pressed. It was a jolt to see him in uniform again after so many years. He was also clean-shaven. She wondered if they would be making him cut his hair regulation close-cropped, too, but at the moment it was still a riot of curls, slightly too long as always.

Ilsa stood, shook hands with him officially, searching his face, but he was inscrutable. The warden closed the door but remained in the room. Ilsa and Strike sat down, facing one another across the table.

“How are you?” she asked.

“Good, thanks, you?” he replied. “How’s Nick?”

They’d decided there was little point hiding their association, although the aim was to seem more like acquaintances than close friends.

“We’re both well, thank you.” Ilsa paused. There was absolutely nothing she could say without the warden hearing. And in any case, the CCTV camera could well be wired for sound as well as picture. Any number of people could be watching, as they both knew. Strike’s expression was bland.

“Do you mind if I record this for my notes?” Ilsa asked, indicating the dictaphone. “It’s standard.”

Strike shrugged. “Sure.”

Ilsa picked up the device and clicked it on, set it on the table between them.

“Right,” she said. “I’ve got the official papers from the front desk. You were arrested on a charge of falsifying evidence and thereby perverting the course of justice, for a historical case dating back to 2004 in Cyprus.”

“That’s right.”

“So, you’ll appear before a magistrate as soon as possible to enter a plea.”

Strike raised a sardonic eyebrow. “Of not guilty. Again.”

Ilsa nodded, writing that down. “Want to tell me about it?”

Strike sat back, lazily confident, but Ilsa, who had known him almost all their lives, could see the tension in the set of his shoulders, in the press of his thumbs on top of one another where his hands sat folded on the table in front of him.

“The accusation was made at the time, and there was no proof. I took over the case from a couple of idiots who had messed up the file. Not my fault.”

“Hm,” Ilsa replied, scribbling notes. “Something must have surfaced for them to revisit it after all this time. I’ll try and find out what. And we’ll be making an application for bail, obviously.”

“Mm,” Strike replied noncommittally, managing to imply without words that he thought that unlikely.

“They treating you all right?”

A smirk pulled at the corner of Strike’s mouth. “All things considering.”

Ilsa wondered what it was like, being a former military police officer, never popular at the time, now in disgrace in an Army prison. Strike’s utterance could have been taken at face value, or it could hide a number of difficulties.

“Well, obviously we’re going to try to get you moved to a civilian facility,” she went on, not looking at the warden. “I’m not sure they can legally hold you here, you’re no longer in the Army.”

“It’s an Army case.”

“Still.” Ilsa sat back and regarded him. Her eyes wanted to flick to the warden by the door; she kept them on Strike’s face.

“I’m putting a file together,” she said carefully. “You’ll be all official, like those ones I have in my study.”

He nodded, his eyes on hers. “I’m surprised you still keep them.”

Ilsa’s gaze grew steely; a hint of guilt slid across Strike’s features, there and gone.

She gave a light laugh. “Well, actually I had a clear out,” she replied. “Just the one left now that I need to pass to my colleague George.”

George Hall was the codename they’d agreed upon for Hardacre. Strike nodded a little, feigning disinterest, but Ilsa had got her message across.

“And I think Robin is going to try to come and see you,” she went on. “She misses you.”

A fond smile crept across Strike’s face, and Ilsa smiled too, sharing in the pretence that he was a man missing his girlfriend.

“It’ll be good to see her,” he said warmly. “Tell her I’m not going anywhere.” He winked.

Ilsa smiled. “Have you got a permanent cell allocated yet?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “I guess they’re still trying to work out where to put me.”

Ilsa nodded. “I’m going to try to get Nick registered as the contact for your leg,” she went on. “So you can ask for him if you have any problems with it and he can come in and advise. I don’t suppose they’ve got anyone on hand with the right expertise.”

Strike shrugged. “They could probably find someone.”

“Still, continuity of care. You’re better with your regular doctor, which is what I shall argue,” Ilsa replied. “You are actually a civilian, after all. Just ask for him if you need.”

Strike nodded. “Will do.”

“Okay,” Ilsa said, closing the file. “I think that’s it for an initial assessment, not much to say until I’ve done some digging. I’ll see what I can find out, and come back.”

Strike nodded.

Ilsa hesitated, thinking of Robin’s concerns. “Anything else I need to know?”

“Don’t think so.”

Ilsa was unable to work out if there really wasn’t, or if he just couldn't say. Her eyes searched his briefly, but she couldn’t be too obvious, and no expression was forthcoming.

“Do you need anything?” she asked. “Books, I don’t know, pack of cards?”

Strike shrugged. “You’ll have to ask what you’re allowed to send,” he replied. “Some cash would be good if Robin is coming in, to stick on my credit at the shop. Cigarettes,” he explained.

Ilsa nodded, rolling her eyes a little. “I’ll tell her.”

“Then that’s it, I’m good, thanks.”

Ilsa’s gaze flickered, momentarily, to the warden. “We’ll soon have you out,” she said stoutly. “Unless they’ve got something new, we’ll get the case thrown out.”

Strike nodded. “I’m counting on that.” He paused. “We done?”

“Yup.” Ilsa picked up the dictaphone and switched it off, started to tidy up her file. Strike stood, and she stood too, reaching to shake his hand again. She squeezed his fingers and grinned at him; he nodded with a small smile and turned away.

The warden opened the door, and Strike was gone without looking back, leaving Ilsa alone in the room, packing the file away into her slim case. Within a few seconds, the young man who had brought her here poked his head in at the door.

“Ready, Mrs Herbert?”

Ilsa nodded briskly, her case by her side, and followed him back out through various doors and along corridors to the front desk, where she was reunited with her mobile phone and handbag. Within minutes, she was back out on the street and ringing for a cab.

While she was waiting for the promised taxi, she dialled Robin’s number.

Robin answered within a few rings. “Hi, Ilsa.”

“Hiya,” Ilsa replied. “Just got out from seeing Corm.”

“How is he?”

“Yeah, good. In Army uniform and clean-shaven, was weird to see him like that again after all these years.”

“I didn’t think a civilian could wear the uniform,” Robin mused.

Ilsa shrugged, even though Robin couldn’t see her. “Must be the prison garb, I guess.”

“I guess.”

“Hey, you fancy a glass of wine later? Friday night, and Nick’s working late. Come and cuddle the cats, they miss you.”

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Robin said warmly.

“In fact, why don’t you stay over?” Ilsa urged. “We can get a takeaway, make an evening of it.”

“Ooh, even better. Okay, thanks, Ilsa. I’ll see you later.”

“Oh, my cab’s here. Better go. See you tonight.”

“Bye.”

Ilsa hung up the phone, flagged down the cab and climbed in, gave the address of her office and was soon on her way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s all I have written thus far, but I start some leave soon and can write loads and catch up on my reading too!


	7. Wine Night

“Right, I want to hear all the details,” Robin said as Ilsa set a glass of wine on the Herberts’ breakfast bar in front of her. “Did he give you any clues at all?”

“Well, you can hear it from the horse’s mouth,” Ilsa replied, rummaging in her handbag which was sat on the counter by the wall. “I knew you’d want it word for word, so...” She produced the dictaphone with a triumphant flourish, and placed it on the bar between them, hitching herself onto a stool opposite Robin.

“Ooh, genius,” Robin replied. Ilsa pressed play, and the two sipped their wine and listened.

It didn’t take long, and Robin sat back, her face in her wine glass. Hearing Strike’s disembodied voice had been a jolt she hadn’t been expecting, making her miss him desperately suddenly. _It’s been less than forty-eight hours,_ she reproved herself. _Get a grip._ She’d spent last night back at her own flat, knowing that if she allowed herself to sleep in Strike’s bed again she’d never go home, and sooner or later she’d get caught. But she had felt lonely there in a way she hadn’t for a long time. It would be a relief to spend tonight under the Herberts’ roof.

She pretended to be thinking, analysing what she’d heard, while she sipped her wine. “Not giving much away, is he?”

“No,” Ilsa mused. “And his body language wasn’t much help. Although—”

Robin glanced at her sharply. “Although what?”

Ilsa shrugged. “I’ve known him all our lives, nearly,” she said slowly. “And I think you’re right, Robin. Something’s off. He looked...” She paused and sighed, frustrated. “I don’t know. Tense. On high alert.”

“Yes! That’s it. That’s exactly how he looked the night Wardle arrested him.” Robin couldn’t bring herself to mention the fear she thought she’d seen in Strike’s face, even to one of his oldest friends. “Something isn’t right. And it’s more than just Wardle going off script like that.”

Ilsa toyed with the stem of her wine glass, then glanced up at Robin. “You trust Wardle?”

Robin hesitated, then nodded. “I think so. No reason not to, and anyway, this isn’t even his case. He was just there to provide publicity. Cormoran’s in the Army’s hands now.”

“And Hardacre?”

Robin shrugged. “I don’t know him. I’d literally only met him twice before the other day. But Cormoran trusts him utterly, they go back years. They’ve had each other’s backs before.”

Ilsa sighed, sipped her wine again. “A long time ago, though. And Corm’s not Army any more.”

Robin set her mouth into a line. “We had this exact...discussion before he took the case. He trusts Hardacre implicitly, he said. And he’s been in touch with him over the years. Hardacre took a risk on his own job letting Corm see those records up in Edinburgh when he was tracking the Shacklewell Ripper.”

“So it’s something else,” Ilsa mused. “Something—”

The doorbell rang, and they both jumped.

“Food!” Ilsa cried. “Fab, I’m starving.” She fished her purse out of her handbag, and Robin climbed down off her stool too and grabbed the oven gloves. She lifted warm plates from the oven and assembled cutlery while Ilsa paid and brought the food through, and talk of Strike was forgotten as they sorted cartons, the warm spicy scent of curry hanging in the air and making their mouths water. Ilsa slid Nick’s selections into the still-warm oven and turned the dial down low, and then she and Robin were heaping food onto their plates and tucking in. The room fell silent but for the quiet burble of the radio and the little sounds of appreciation made by hungry women tucking into a very welcome meal.

“I’m sure he had no concerns before,” Robin said eventually, when a third of her food was gone and Ilsa had got up to refill their wine glasses. “He was very, very sure it was safe. I was the one supplying the voice of caution.”

Ilsa nodded, pouring wine. “I can imagine.” She was suddenly wondering about the “discussion” her old friend and her new one had had, but neither of them took kindly to her attempts to probe into their working relationship, to suggest there might be more there, so she set that thought aside. “So, it all changed at the point of arrest?”

“Yeah,” Robin said slowly. “Almost as soon as he saw Wardle.”

“But you were expecting him?”

“Yeah.” Robin straightened up suddenly. “So it must have been one of the heavies.”

“What?”

“Like I was having a go at Wardle about, he brought five guys with him. Totally unnecessary.”

“He said three of them were SIB,” Ilsa said, remembering.

Suddenly both women were reaching for their handbags, extracting notebooks - Ilsa’s leather-bound, black, courtroom functional, and Robin’s a pale shade of teal, chosen to look nondescript, as though it could be anything from a student notebook to an artist’s sketchbook. With a couple of wry chuckles at their own symmetry, they each flicked to the relevant page and began to add to their notes.

“So we need to find out who those three SIB guys were,” Robin said, writing herself a note to email Graham Hardacre. “Maybe he recognised one.”

“Yup,” Ilsa replied. “Or maybe it was just that there were three, maybe that’s unusual in some way and that set him on alert. We don’t know enough about how the SIB operate.”

“That’s why we have Graham,” Robin replied, setting her pen down and picking her fork up again.

“Mm.” Ilsa turned her attention back to her own food.

There was another pause while they both ate.

“How did he look?” Robin asked as nonchalantly as she could. Ilsa glanced at her sharply, and Robin hoped the heat in her cheeks could be explained by the spices and alcohol she had consumed.

“Okay,” Ilsa said slowly. “Tense, but okay. Like I said, it was weird seeing him in uniform again, and properly shaved, we all know he’s less inclined to bother with that recently. Wonder if they’ll make him crop his hair too.”

“Hm.” Suddenly Robin was imaging Strike in full Army gear, close-cropped, clean-shaven, and the heat in her veins might not entirely have been curry-related...

Ilsa pushed her plate away with a sigh. “I am _stuffed_.”

Robin nodded, setting her plate aside next to her friend’s. “Me too. I’m still eating because it’s delicious, but I was full ages ago.”

Ilsa laughed and nodded. “Wine top-up?”

“Why not?”

Robin tidied the plates into the dishwasher and set the cartons in the sink to be washed for the recycling while Ilsa poured more wine.

“Loo,” the lawyer announced as she set the wine bottle back in the fridge, and Robin nodded as Ilsa’s slippered feet padded away down the hall.

She sat and gazed out of the patio doors, picturing Strike out there as she had seen him so many times, cigarette in one hand and Doom Bar in the other, Nick by his side, idly chatting while she and Ilsa gossiped in the kitchen. A surge of emotion rose in her, bringing a swell of tears to her eyes and a tightening to her throat. She missed him, despite it only being two days. She felt suddenly very alone - something was going on, she had a case she needed to solve, and she had to do it without her mentor and partner.

She shook her head a little. She was overthinking. The case was Strike’s, and as soon as he had the information he needed, bail would miraculously be granted for the charges he was supposedly answering and he’d be home. A swift resolution from Hardacre’s end would allow the arrest to be expunged from his record; this would all be over in as little as a couple of weeks. Wasn’t it possible, she asked herself now, that she was over-imagining the rest of it, that Strike was fine where he was and the case was proceeding exactly as he and Hardacre had planned? Wasn’t it entirely likely, in fact, that she was seeing shadows caused by her own misgivings about taking the case in the first place, jumpy because for the first time in their partnership, Strike was absent and she was in charge? It was odd, issuing instructions to Hannah and their contractors, having people obey her. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being somewhat of an impostor.

She jumped at the resounding slap of a file hitting the shiny surface of the counter in front of her. Ilsa swung herself back onto her stool and picked up her wine, gazed at Robin with a hint of defiance in her eyes.

“What’s this?” It took Robin’s distracted, alcohol-fogged brain a moment to catch up.

“The Cyprus file. I dug it out, it was still in that drawer,” Ilsa replied. “Wanna look?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s slow, writing as I go now! Will try to pick up the pace...


	8. The Pictures

Robin looked at Ilsa, and then down at the file, and back up at Ilsa again.

“Have you opened it?”

Ilsa shook her head. “I was going to leave it right where it was until Monday night’s meeting. In fact, I was considering getting Hardacre to get it out of the drawer himself so my fingerprints aren’t even on it.” She shrugged. “But then I thought, how long do fingerprints last? I put it in there, so if they can trace very old prints, mine are already on it. Can they tell if they’re old or new?”

She laughed. “And then I thought, why would they even look for prints? I can’t prove I didn’t look, it’s a known legal paradox that you can’t prove a negative. Lack of my prints wouldn’t prove I didn’t. So stuff it. Let’s have a look and see what’s actually been in my study all these years.”

“Well—” Robin began, but Ilsa had already opened the folder. She tipped it up, and a series of envelopes fell onto the counter between them. Three were smaller, slim airmail envelopes addressed to Corporal Strike at an Army base in Cyprus, two bearing German stamps and one British. And a larger, manilla envelope addressed to Sergeant Strike care of a UK barracks address, dated much later, also with British stamps and postmarks.

“Um...” Ilsa gazed at the letters, seemingly at a loss suddenly. She picked up the nearest at random, opened it and peered inside. There was a pause as she read.

“Oh, crumbs,” she muttered.

“What?” Robin demanded, as Ilsa held the letter open, angling her head to read what she could without touching the contents. “Ilsa, _what?_ ”

“Er, the naughty letters thing wasn’t just a cover story,” Ilsa replied, her cheeks pink, closing the letter again. “I don’t think we both need to see Tracey in her underwear, do we? Or to read any more of that, quite frankly.”

Robin swallowed. Strike had had other relationships before her, she knew that. She’d witnessed some of them. But only from the outside, a very far removed outside. She didn’t need...details. “You sure that’s all that’s in there?”

“Yeah, it’s only one thin sheet of airmail paper and a couple of photos,” Ilsa said, putting the letter back in the folder. She picked up the other two blue air mail envelopes and felt them, bending them in her fingers. “These are just as thin.”

“This one, then,” Robin said, grabbing the big one. She opened it and tipped the contents out.

“Whoa!” Ilsa squeaked, snatching up the first photo that fluttered down, face up, onto the table. “Holy Hannah, Robin, _look_.” She held it up for Robin to see, her eyes dancing.

Robin looked, colour rising in her cheeks. Strike must have been about thirty at the time, she would have guessed from what she knew of the timeline. Fit and tanned, and wearing only Army regulation camouflage trousers and his military dog tags. He was leaning back against a wall in what she assumed was a barracks building, arms folded across his broad chest, his head tilted slightly to the side, gazing straight at the camera with a knowing grin. She stared at the picture, her eyes raking across his muscled chest, his copious body hair, his toned stomach beneath the folded forearms, that dark, dark hair tapering down below his belt, back to, God, his _arms_...

Ilsa giggled and put the photo down. “You’re drooling,” she said, and Robin, scarlet, tried to drag her thoughts back to coherence. She longed to look at the photo again, but didn’t dare give herself away.

“I am not,” she replied. “I was just...surprised.”

Ilsa chortled. “Yeah, surprise, that’s what that look was,” she said, grinning. “Here’s another one, look.” She picked up the photo and giggled, staring at it. There was some writing scrawled on the back that her fingers were obscuring.

Robin reached for the picture, and Ilsa twitched it away, then, laughing, relinquished it and picked up the first piece of paper while Robin stared at the new picture.

Strike was stood with his back to the camera in this one, topless again, looking over his shoulder. Robin didn’t know whether she was relieved or disappointed that he was still wearing his camouflage trousers, but it was hard to stop looking at the way they moulded tightly over his backside, the desert khaki material stretched taut. The muscles in his back stood out where he was twisted a little to look over his shoulder at the camera, and she could see the clean lines of his skin unblemished by the scar the Shacklewell Ripper had given him, that she had traced with her fingertips not three nights ago. It felt almost voyeuristic to be looking at pictures that hadn’t been meant for her. She flicked the picture over. The writing on the back was heartbreakingly familiar. “The promised arse shot! C xx” Robin felt a tug of something she wasn’t sure she wanted to define, suddenly imagining him happy in another relationship, with a woman she knew his friends and family had met and liked—

“Shit, Rob, listen to this.” Ilsa’s voice dragged her back to the moment. “It’s dated a couple of years after the postmarks on the others. ‘Dear Corm, I hope you’re well. You’ve probably heard on the grapevine I’m getting married next month. Anyway, I was having a clear out and I found all these. I can’t keep them, but I thought you might still need them, so I’m sending them back to you. I’ve put the whole letters in just as they were. Good luck in Afghanistan, stay safe and look after Anstis. He needs it! All my love, Tracey xxx’”

Robin was reaching for the rest of the letter as Ilsa lowered the paper she was holding. “Need them?” Ilsa was musing. “What would he need?”

“These,” Robin replied, her heart in her mouth as she opened the last few pieces of paper folded together. A couple more pictures fell out, but she barely noticed. These were evidence sheets, reports, a picture stapled to one. Some in an unfamiliar hand, some packed with Strike’s spidery writing that she recognised from their files back in the office, neater than the scrawl he used for informal notes or signing cards. She scanned them quickly. Without context, they meant little to her. They would need Hardacre to tell them if they were key pieces of evidence. But she would have bet her life that they were.

Ilsa reached for them, but Robin drew them away. “Don’t,” she murmured. “In case they do check for prints.” She spread the papers flat on the counter so Ilsa could see them without touching. Beneath one edge peeked another picture she longed to look at, but kept her eyes away from.

Ilsa peered at the sheets. “Are they the missing evidence?”

“I assume so. We’d need Hardacre to confirm.”

Ilsa sat back and picked up her wine, took a swig. “So he did tamper with the file,” she said slowly. “But _why_?”

Robin shook her head, reaching for her own wine. “Dunno.” She tried to gather together thoughts that had been clouded by wine and then scattered entirely by pictures of Strike, half-naked and so _fit_... “And at least one of them is in his writing. Why would he remove evidence he himself collected? It makes no sense.”

The two women stared at one another.

“I should take photos,” Robin muttered, reaching into her bag for her phone, but Ilsa laid a hand on her arm.

“No,” she said. “Very dodgy territory. These are classified military documents. It’s bad enough we’ve seen them. If we copy them in any way, that’s a big deal to the Army.”

Robin sighed and drew her hand back. “So we just hand them over to Hardacre?”

Ilsa shrugged.

Robin took another swig of wine. “Cormoran kept them all these years, and now we just relinquish them?”

“He mentioned them now. I told him I was going to give the file to ‘George’ and he didn’t say anything or look at me like I shouldn’t,” Ilsa said thoughtfully. “I think he wants us to give them to him. I mean, they’re no use in our hands, are they? I don’t even know what they are. It’d be like trying to work out the picture on a jigsaw based on a handful of pieces.”

Robin nodded. “I guess. Graham’s the only one who’s going to be able to make any sense of them and decide what to do and what they mean.”

She sighed. “I just—”

“What?” Ilsa watched her friend, waiting. “You don’t trust him?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just—” Robin stopped and sighed again, frustrated. “I don’t know him. But Cormoran does, and he trusts him, so I do too,” she said firmly. “We’ll hand them over. This must be why he was keeping them.”

Ilsa pulled a face. “Because he knew one day he’d be sent on an undercover mission based on this case, and he’d need them then?” she asked, scepticism heavy in her voice.

“No,” Robin replied, thinking. “This is the ‘something else going on’ that you and I have both sensed.” She took another swig of wine. “Think about it, Ilsa,” she said, earnest suddenly, leaning forward. “Cormoran’s always known he had these papers. Well, that you did,” she clarified, and Ilsa rolled her eyes and nodded.

“And he never once mentioned them during the planning of this case,” Robin went on. “He could have told Graham about them, loads of times. He didn’t. So they only became relevant when he was arrested.”

Ilsa sat back. “We’re back to that night again, to those guys.”

Robin nodded. “It must be,” she said. “He saw something, or someone, that night that made these pieces of evidence suddenly relevant.”

They gazed at one another for a moment. Ilsa nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “We have to hand them over.”


	9. More Pictures

The sound of Nick’s key in the front door broke into their moment of agreement. Robin swiftly folded the evidence sheets up and slipped them back into the manilla envelope while Ilsa went to greet her husband.

“Good shift?” she asked, kissing his cheek.

Nick stripped his jacket off and hung it by the door. “Long,” he replied succinctly. “And hot. I’m going to jump in the shower. That curry smells amazing.”

“I’ll dish it up for you. And open a beer?” Ilsa said.

“Sounds perfect, thank you. Hi, Robin!” Nick called as he headed for the stairs.

“Hi, Nick,” Robin called back, still tidying up the letters as Ilsa came bustling back into the kitchen. She busied about finding a plate for her husband and sliding it into the oven above the waiting cartons, releasing a warm waft of spice-scented air as she did so. She turned the oven up a little and went to get a bottle of lager from the fridge.

“Anything else useful in there?” she asked over her shoulder, turning to the drawer to find a bottle opener.

Robin hesitated. “I guess we won’t know unless we...read the letters,” she replied. “Like Graham said, they might have discussed the case. Looking at the way these are organised, he must have sent the missing pieces from the file to Tracey for safekeeping.”

“Yeah,” Ilsa mused, opening Nick’s beer and reaching a glass down from the shelf. She moved to stand at the end of the counter to pour the beer. “I guess he didn’t want to risk having stolen documents in with his stuff.”

Robin looked down at the papers in her hands. “But he didn’t destroy them. He could have just taken a match to them, but he obviously wanted to keep them.”

“Yeah. And so I ended up with them. I really have been storing stolen military documents all these years.” Ilsa pulled a face.

Robin nodded in sympathy. “Are you cross with him?” she asked curiously.

Ilsa shrugged. “Not so much, now I’ve calmed down. No one found out, and they’ll be gone soon. They must be important, he’s gone to a lot of trouble to keep them over the years.”

“Yeah.”

“And he might have told Tracey why, in his letters. Are they there too?”

Robin nodded, holding out a handful of letters, folded sheets of paper covered in Cormoran’s spidery scrawl. “I don’t know if I can look, though. They’re private.”

“I’m his mate, I’ll do it.” Ilsa set Nick’s beer on the dining table with a knife and fork, and climbed back onto her stool. “Here.”

Robin passed the letters across, and Ilsa opened the first one and started to read. Another photo fluttered down onto the counter, and Robin picked it up.

Ilsa made a small, strangled sound, her cheeks scarlet, and hurriedly turned the page over to start reading the other side, then just as swiftly folded it back up again. “I can’t.”

Robin grinned at her. “Too personal?”

Ilsa nodded, her eyes twinkling, her cheeks pink. “Way too personal. I just can’t do it. We’re going to have to let Hardacre handle it. Unless you want to try?”

Robin hesitated, looking at the letters and trying to imagine Strike knowing she’d read them. “No, I don’t think I can, either.”

“There we go, then.” Ilsa nodded to the picture in Robin’s hand. “Go on,” she added with a grin.

By the time Nick clattered back down the stairs in a T-shirt and jogging bottoms, his hair still damp from the shower, the two were giggling over the remaining pictures. Ilsa jumped up to go and assemble her husband’s curry, leaving Robin to start to tidy up the file.

“Hi, Robin,” Nick greeted her warmly with a kiss on her cheek. “What’s all this?” He glanced curiously from Robin’s pink face to Ilsa’s studiously innocent smile as she dished up his lamb saagwala.

“Work,” Ilsa replied, and Robin snorted a giggle.

Nick eyed the pictures on the counter. “Work? Looking at pictures of— Wait, is that Oggy?” He leaned closer to look, and cast a cheeky grin at Robin’s discomfort.

“It’s kind of work,” Ilsa said. “That’s that file Corm asked us ages ago to keep, remember? The one you’d forgotten all about.”

“I’m sure I never knew it was there,” Nick said, going to retrieve his beer and taking a welcome few gulps. “Oh, I’ve been looking forward to a nice, cold beer half the afternoon.”

“I did tell you, years ago,” Ilsa replied patiently, carrying his plate across to set in front of him as he sat down. “I’d half forgotten about it too.”

“Mm,” Nick replied noncommittally. “Thank you for this.”

Ilsa wrinkled her nose at him fondly, and Robin took a moment while her friends were distracted to scan the pictures again. This one in her left hand, showing Cormoran in a beige Army issue T-shirt and his camouflage trousers, framed in a doorway with his arms above his head, crossed wrists resting on the door frame, leaning his weight onto his arms and looking slightly up at the camera. He wasn’t smiling in this one, and his serious look combined with a hint of sultry intent made her insides glow. He’d looked at her like that, the first night he’d taken her back to his flat after a Friday night in the Tottenham. Impatient with the slow pace he was setting despite the fact that he’d made the first move when he’d slowly leaned to kiss her at her own front door the night before, she’d undressed for him, and he’d leaned one shoulder against his bedroom door and watched with just such a hooded expression—

The last picture, in her other hand, was an outdoor shot of him in his full Army gear, and had clearly been taken by a friend. Other soldiers, out of focus, were dotted in the background. His hands were folded behind his back, the standard issue red cap that gave the Royal Military Police their nickname on his head. He still had that cap, Robin knew - she’d seen it in the top of one of the boxes that had lived, unmentioned, on the landing outside their office for several months and were now piled in one corner of Strike’s tiny flat.

Ilsa hitched herself back onto the stool opposite. “Still ogling?”

“I am not!” Robin said hotly, putting the photos down. Ilsa giggled.

“No one would blame you,” she replied, fishing out the shirtless ones again. “I mean, look at him.” She held up the one with Strike leaning against the wall, arms folded across his thickly-haired chest. “Look at those abs!” She giggled again. “Bet he doesn’t look quite like that any more. Lucky Tracey.”

Robin couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t give her away, but she was saved by Nick’s disgruntled “oi!” from his seat at the dining table. Ilsa turned to grin at him. “What?”

“Husband, sat right here while you ogle another guy,” Nick complained, and Ilsa laughed and slid back off her stool and went to him.

“Put your hackles down, darling,” she told him, grinning. “You know I’m only kidding, and teasing Robin a little bit.” And she leaned to kiss him. Focused on one another, neither Ilsa nor Nick noticed Robin slip the folded-arms picture into the back pocket of her jeans. She scoped the rest of the pictures and letters up, and when Ilsa returned to her stool, Robin was folding the flap down on the manilla envelope and sliding it back into the file.

“Let’s set this aside for Graham,” she said firmly, keen to move the conversation on from Ilsa trying to get her to admit to liking the pictures. She tried to imagine Ilsa’s reaction if she knew just how much Robin had liked them, and hid a grin as Ilsa picked up the file.

“Good plan,” she said. “Back to the study for this, and we can turn our attention to much more important matters, like when we’re going to finally go and see that play. We’ve been trying to find a date for weeks. We’ll miss it at this rate.”

“I’ve got my diary right here,” Robin replied.

“Great. Pour some more wine while I put this somewhere safe,” Ilsa replied, and headed for the study. Laughing, Robin went to retrieve the last of the wine from the fridge.


	10. Robin visits Strike

Robin sat at a metal table that was bolted to the floor in the prison visiting room, on a plastic chair, with two plastic cups of tea in front of her, trying not to look as nervous as she felt. She twisted her hands together a little in her lap. She had nothing to distract her - her handbag and phone had had to be left in a locker at the front desk after she’d finished paying the cash into Strike’s prison account so that he could make purchases at the shop. She’d brought him a couple of books from his flat and a packet of Benson & Hedges too, but had had to relinquish those as well so that they might be inspected before he received them. Other than a few coins in her pocket for purchasing the tea, she’d not been allowed to bring anything in.

The room was quiet, a few other couples dotted about, mostly women visiting their partners. Murmurs of conversation that didn’t quite drown out the steady squeak of the shoes of the warden slowly patrolling the room, his hands clasped behind his back. Squeak, squeak, squeak on the linoleum floor.

Robin felt like a fraud amongst these visitors, sharp pangs of guilt assailing her at the nods of recognition in the waiting room outside, camaraderie she didn’t deserve. She’d been looking forward to seeing Strike all day, but now she longed to leave this artificial, claustrophobic environment.

A far door opened, and suddenly Strike was coming towards her, grinning his big grin, and all her misgivings vanished. She couldn’t help staring. He was indeed uniformed, in part - a plain olive green T-shirt and khaki trousers, Army boots, and he was still clean-shaven. He’d clearly had his hair cut since Ilsa had seen him too, and although it wasn’t buzzed short-short, it was a lot closer cropped than she was used to seeing, short at the back and sides but still curly on top.

She longed to reach for him, but wasn’t sure if she was allowed, and contented herself with merely smiling at him as he slid into the chair opposite her, aware that her smile was broadening into a silly grin at the sight of him, the nearness of him. He grinned back at her.

There was a slightly awkward pause. Robin suddenly couldn’t think of anything to say. “Um, I brought tea,” she murmured, sliding his cup towards him, and he smiled gently.

“Thank you, Robin,” he replied, and the way he said her name made tears start in her eyes unexpectedly. She’d been struggling with her feelings since the night Wardle had marched him away, and it was suddenly too much, to see him here, incarcerated even though for him it was voluntary. She tried to blink them away without success.

“Hey,” he murmured gently, his hand closing over hers on the table between them. He squeezed her fingers, his thumb rubbing over the back of her knuckles. “I’d hug you, but I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules.”

Robin giggled damply and wiped her eyes with her free hand. The warden strolled past, but if hand-holding wasn’t allowed, he chose to ignore it, perhaps in deference to Robin’s tears. She tangled her fingers with Strike’s on the table. “Sorry,” she muttered.

Her only answer was another gentle squeeze of her hand.

“How’s work?” It was a deliberate change of subject. Robin cleared her throat, gathered herself together.

“Good, yeah. Barclay is taking care of Nightclub guy, I’m just letting him get on with that. I’m mostly keeping up with Redhead. Andy’s filling in the gaps, doing as much as he feels he can manage.”

“Hannah?”

“Yeah, she’s all right. Keen. Learning as she goes, but picking it up fast.”

Strike grunted. “Good.” He picked up his tea and took a sip.

“I put some money in your account.”

“Thank you,” he replied. “I’ll pay you back when I eventually get out.”

Robin shrugged. “No hurry. And I brought you some cigarettes and a couple of books, but I had to hand them over at the desk.”

Strike nodded. “I should get them later.”

There was another brief pause. Robin took a breath, painfully aware of the warden walking slowly up and down the rows. She and Ilsa had discussed over breakfast yesterday how to ask Strike about the letters and the information in them, and what to pass to Hardacre.

“I got a letter this week,” she said conversationally, her eyes on her tea as she, too, took a sip.

“Oh, yeah?” Strike sounded casual, but Robin could sense she had his full attention.

“Yeah, from my friend Tracey.”

“That’s nice.” He was watching her carefully, waiting to see where she was going with this.

“Yeah, she’s sent me that recipe I asked for ages ago, the one for that curry.” They’d chosen the analogy deliberately, so that he might guess that she and Ilsa had opened the file together at curry night.

Strike nodded. “That was kind of her. Are you going to make it?”

Robin shrugged. “It looks quite complicated,” she replied. “I thought I might pass it to George, it’s more his sort of thing.”

Strike nodded again. “Probably a good idea.” He hesitated. “Did you, er, read it?”

Robin met his gaze. “Only the ingredients list,” she said slowly. “The method looked...complicated, I didn’t read that. But the ingredients, I’m not sure I’ve got everything I need. Maybe George would know.”

His eyes on hers, Strike replied slowly, “Well, I shouldn’t think George would need the method, just the ingredients. He’ll be able to work the rest out himself.”

Robin nodded. “That’s what I thought.” So, the letters could remain private.

She hesitated, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “I have to say, the pictures were delicious, though. Positively mouth-watering.”

Strike sat back, a smirk twisting his uneven lips. “Is that so?”

“Absolutely. The photographer knew what they were doing.”

He grinned. “I expect they had one of those cameras with a timer.”

 _Hah_. That was how he had taken the pictures. Robin grinned back, wondering how far she could push this analogy.

“Yeah, probably. Well, they were much appreciated. Made me feel quite...hungry.”

“Did they now?” Strike picked up his cup again, hiding his smug grin in his tea.

“Well, you know. I haven’t had a decent curry in a little while now.”

Strike coughed into his cup and spluttered a little, and Robin giggled as she watched him wipe tea from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I seem to recall we had plenty of curry the night before I was arrested!” he protested, his eyes twinkling at her.

Robin shrugged. “I like curry.” She winked at him. “Especially when you’re cooking.”

His gaze darkened as her eyes held his, and a shiver of desire ran down Robin’s spine. They’d not been dating long enough to have passed the honeymoon spell of their relationship, still ending up in bed after every date, and before some of them as well, both too impatient to wait until food had been ordered and consumed or a film sat through.

“I’ll cook for you the minute I get out of here,” he promised, his voice low and husky. He reached for her hand again, sliding his over it, his thumb caressing the sensitive skin on the inside of her wrist, sending goosebumps washing up her arm. The intensity in his gaze caused a rush of heat to sweep through her, pooling low in her belly, and she nodded, trembling. “I’ll hold you to that.”

Then he grinned wickedly at her. “And in the meantime, you’ll just have to cook for yourself.”

It was Robin’s turn to lose her cool, turning a giggle into a cough, picking up her tea to hide her discomposure in her cup. Strike watched, amused, as she scrambled her equanimity back together until she could meet his gaze again, her cheeks pink. “I suppose I will. The pictures will help.”

“Oh, are you keeping the pictures?” He raised a delighted eyebrow at her.

“Just the one. I thought the others should probably stay with the, er, method for now.”

“Well. You don’t want to be seen to be separating them,” he replied, grinning again, clearly knowing full well that Robin couldn’t have openly pinched the photographs in front of Ilsa.

“No, exactly,” she agreed.

“Which one did you keep?”

Behind Robin, the squeak, squeak of the warden’s shoes. She slid her hand from Strike’s, leaning back on her chair, folding her arms and tilting her head at him in an echo of the photograph that was now safely tucked into the book on her bedside table back at her flat. He nodded almost imperceptibly, a little cheeky wink she almost missed, there and gone.

The warden squeaked past, and Strike leaned in again, sliding his hand across the table, his fingers brushing across the backs of hers, a ghost of a touch. “God, I want you,” he murmured, so low she barely heard him. She could smell him, that hint of musk and spice that she knew so well now even when it was hidden behind unfamiliar shower gel.

Robin turned her hand, just enough to lightly scrape her fingernails across his palm, delighting in the sudden hitch to his breathing and the way his pupils dilated still further, his eyes almost black as they bored into hers. “Me too,” she whispered back, and his gaze flicked, briefly, to her mouth. Suddenly she was longing to kiss him, to feel his tongue against hers, exploring, and she knew he was feeling the same way, dark eyes on hers, desire coursing through veins—

Robin sat back again, painfully aware of other wardens around the room, watching every interaction.

Strike took a shuddering breath, and she smiled at him, soft and sultry. “You started it.”

“I think you’ll find you did,” he replied, his voice rough around the edges in a way that her body thrilled to. “Now can we please talk about something else so that I’ll be able to make the walk back to my cell without totally embarrassing myself?”

Desire clenched in Robin’s groin at his admission, but she merely gave him another soft smile and nodded. “Good idea,” she replied. “You’ve got your own cell, then?”

Strike swallowed, and she almost could see him pulling his mind back to the prosaic, the effort required to do so. “Yeah, half a one. Everyone shares.”

“And your cell mate?”

Strike shrugged. “He’s all right. Nothing special.”

Not Faulkner, then. But Hardacre had said it would be too obvious to house them together, at least at first. Robin nodded. “Made any friends?”

“Not yet, just sussing everyone out.”

There was another pause as they sipped their tea. Robin wanted to ask about the night Strike had been arrested, but she didn’t know how. She and Ilsa had drawn a blank on how to broach the subject.

Strike solved the dilemma for her. “That gallery we went to the other week,” he said suddenly, and immediately Robin was on high alert, though she was careful not to show it. She set her tea down slowly.

“Yeah?” she watched him casually. Squeak, squeak, the warden approached again, the other side of them this time, heading towards her from behind Strike.

“That still life reminded me of something, remember?”

“Yeah, you said at the time.” Where was he going with this?

“It was the cauliflower,” he mused.

“Which painting was this?”

“The still life, the one by the door, over to the right of the main entrance. Big. You said it looked Dutch.”

Robin nodded, trying to commit every word to memory. She could work out what he meant later.

“It’s not important.” Strike shrugged as the warden squeaked past again. “I just remembered where I’d seen a painting like it.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, on a holiday I went on years ago. It was in the...hotel I stayed in, in the lobby.”

“Was it? Where was this?”

“The Med somewhere. Some island.”

Robin stared at him, and Strike looked back, impassive, willing her to understand.

He was talking about Cyprus.


	11. Clues and Memories

“How was he?”

Robin tucked her legs up underneath herself in her bed, the duvet wrapped around her waist, her mug of tea in one hand and the phone pressed to her ear. She smiled; she’d known Ilsa wouldn’t be able to wait until tomorrow night’s meeting to hear news of her old friend.

“Yeah, he’s good. Shorter hair, but otherwise just like you said.”

“You gave him the stuff, the books and fags?”

“Yeah. I had to hand it over before I went in, but he should get it.” Robin sipped her tea.

“Did you manage to ask him about the letters?”

Robin grinned. “Yeah, I did, and he caught on just like we said he would. No need to give Graham the letters, just the evidence.”

“Right. I’ll stick all the letters in the brown envelope and give him the file with just the evidence sheets in, then. See what he makes of them.”

“Good plan.”

“And what about the night he was arrested?”

Robin set her mug down on her bedside table and hitched herself up in the bed a little. “Well, here’s where it gets interesting.”

“Ooh, okay.”

“I wasn’t going to bring it up, couldn’t work out how. So I’d decided I was just going to have to leave it. But then he did.”

“Huh. How? What did he say?”

“He started talking about one of the paintings. Hang on.” Robin reached down to fish in her handbag by the side of the bed, pulling out her notebook. She’d sat and made notes at once at Battersea train station, writing down everything she could recall of their conversation, letting one train come and go without boarding it so as not to disrupt her thought processes. She flicked through to the relevant page.

“Here we are. He mentioned one of the paintings. A still life, he said, that he’d seen somewhere before. He said that I’d said it looked Dutch, and something about a cauliflower, and then he said he’d seen it in the lobby of a hotel where he went on holiday, on the Mediterranean.”

“Cyprus?” Robin could hear Ilsa’s piqued interest in the sudden sharpness of her tone.

“I guess. He’d know that would be the conclusion we’d jump to, so why mention it otherwise?”

“Hmm.” Ilsa paused. “A still life, with a cauliflower, Dutch? I don’t know any such painting.”

“Me neither.”

Ilsa sighed. “Corm knows his art, though. Just because we haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But why would it be relevant anyway?”

Robin sighed too. “I don’t know. I had a vague google earlier, but I couldn’t find a still life with a cauliflower in it.”

“I’ll ask around at work. Say I went to a pub quiz or something, and we couldn’t get the answer,” Ilsa said, and Robin chuckled. “Good plan.”

“So we’re still on for tomorrow night? Six o’clock at mine? Shouldn’t take long.”

“Yeah. Thanks, for hosting, Ilsa. We wouldn’t all fit in my tiny flat, and I don’t own four chairs.”

Ilsa laughed. “I know. We can hardly squeeze like we do for curry night. I don’t mind sitting on my husband’s lap, but I’m not sitting on Wardle’s!”

Robin giggled. “Now there’s a weird image.”

“Isn’t it just!”

They laughed for a moment, then drifted, a lull in the conversation.

“How are you?” Ilsa asked suddenly.

“Me?”

“Yeah. Must be weird, running the place on your own, Corm locked up.”

“Yeah, it is, kind of.” Robin picked up her tea again. “I’m getting used to it, though. It’s kind of cool having the boss desk.”

Ilsa chuckled. “I bet it is.”

“And I get so much more done, not having to answer the phones and deal with the post and the emails and so on. The invoices are so time-consuming. When we’re finally forced to move, I might suggest we get somewhere a little bigger so we can have a shared secretary, I could spend more time on cases and less on the admin.”

“Good plan.” Ilsa yawned. “Right, I’m off to bed. Early start in the morning. I’ll see you tomorrow night?”

“Yeah, see you then. Night, Ilsa.”

“Night.” And her friend was gone.

Robin idly toyed with her phone, finishing her tea, scrolling through messages, clicking on a couple of emails. She wished she could text Strike. They hadn’t spent many nights apart in recent weeks, and those that they had had ended with a phone call or a few texts. It was strange, suddenly being out of communication with him. She sighed, laid her phone and empty mug down, picked up her book.

The photo of Strike from the Cyprus file slid out into her lap and she picked it up, smiling. It really was a rather delicious image. She ran her fingertips across the dog tags, almost buried in his copious chest hair that she now knew was soft and silky under her touch. What was it about seeing him in only his Army trousers and the dog tags that was so sexy?

Her eyes wandered across his folded arms, the definition of his biceps, the way his big fingers rested against the muscle. The breadth to his shoulders she was used to - despite the extra weight he carried these days, Strike still maintained the definition of his upper arms and shoulders, presumably because he used them to manoeuvre where an able-bodied person might use their legs, pulling himself into the Land Rover or around his flat at night.

But to see the rest of him so... Robin’s fingers drifted to the firm abs below his crossed arms, to the toned waist disappearing into his khaki trousers. Heat pooled low in her groin and she wished, by no means for the first time, that he was here with her, in her bed. She smiled at the picture, at that knowing, cheeky grin, his head tilted on one side, knowing exactly what effect he was having on the viewer. He’d looked at her like that today, just a little, a cheeky glance over the rim of his cheap plastic cup of tea.

Heat poured through her veins as she remembered the visit today, the way he’d stared at her, eyes black with desire. She’d never, before the last few weeks, been wanted the way Strike wanted her, so totally focused on her and the pleasure they’d found in one another.

With a little sigh she flopped back against the pillows, dropping the picture into her lap, one hand moving to her breast and the other sliding down below the duvet. Just the thought of him here in the bed with her, as he had been less than a week ago, touching her the way she touched herself now, stroking, sliding fingers— Now she was imagining she was in that barracks with him, running her hands across that firm stomach, winding the dog tags in her fingers to pull him down to kiss him, sliding her hand down beneath his waistband.

“God, I want you,” he murmured in her fantasy, exactly as he had that afternoon across an impersonal prison table, sending shockwaves of desire though her. She whimpered a little and closed her eyes, her fingers circling her clit, moving lower.

Her orgasm raced up on her swiftly, her body desperately missing the touch of his, the thrust and give that her fingers could only echo. Panting, she picked up the picture again and chuckled at his knowing grin.

“Cheeky,” she told him. “You’ll be back here to take care of the ‘cooking’ yourself soon enough.”

She slipped the photo back into her book and wriggled down beneath the duvet, languid and warm, and wondered, as she drifted into sleep, if he was thinking of her too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a short one so I will post more later or tomorrow. Trying not to rush the posting as I’m not many chapters ahead and this is going to be loooooong and casefic is hard 😂


	12. Monday Night Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The ratings hike should have been yesterday, sorry 😳

When Robin arrived at the Herberts’ on Monday evening she was slightly late, having come straight from tailing Redhead. Her mark’s spin class had overrun, and then Robin had had to follow her far enough to be sure she was going home, impatient at the dawdling pace that was making her late for the meeting.

Nick let her in, took her coat and hung it up, then retreated back to the living room while Robin went through to the kitchen. Wardle, Hardacre and Ilsa were sat at the table with mugs of tea, and a spare one was waiting for her.

“Sorry I’m late,” Robin said, moving to the empty chair. “Previous case overran. Where are we?”

“Only just sat down,” Ilsa replied. “And I’ve just given Graham the file.” She waved a hand at the SIB investigator, who was poring over the pieces of evidence spread in front of him, watched closely by Wardle who, Robin noticed with amusement, had Ossie on his lap and was idly stroking him. Ricky, the Herberts’ other cat, wound around their legs under the table, miffed that the humans appeared to have assembled in the kitchen without anyone attending to the empty food bowls in the utility room.

“Anything useful, Graham?” Robin asked as she sat down and got out her notebook.

Hardacre rubbed his hand across his face. “Weird,” he said at last. “It’s so long since I’ve seen the original file—”

“You didn’t get it out for this case?” Wardle asked sceptically.

Hardacre shrugged. “I didn’t know it was going to be so relevant,” he replied. “The Cyprus case was just the excuse to arrest Strike, remember, and the reason why Faulkner might talk to him. It was a closed case, wasn’t really meant to be anything to do with this until he mentioned it.”

“Can you get it?” Ilsa asked. Hardacre pulled a face.

“Probably, if I was back at the office. I suspect the original paperwork is somewhere in storage, but digital copies should be on our databases. I’ve got my laptop here with me, I’ll see if I can access it. I can’t always, bloody security is off the charts.”

“Want the WiFi code?” Ilsa offered, half-standing, but Hardacre chuckled ruefully, shaking his head.

“I won’t be able to get on on a home network, not nearly secure enough,” he replied as Ilsa sat back down. “But thank you. Tulse Hill is nearest, I’ll go down tomorrow, flash my badge, see if I can borrow an office for a couple of hours.”

“Just carry that for the fun of it, then?” Wardle asked sardonically, nodding at the laptop bag next to Hardacre on the table.

“Mate, this thing comes to dinner with me, and the pub,” Hardacre replied. “I’m not supposed to let it out of my sight from when I check it out of the office to when I check it back in. Certainly can’t leave it in a hotel room.”

“Wow,” Ilsa replied. “You’d think it’d be better off in a hotel room safe than on a pub table.”

Hardacre shrugged. “Well, you’re not exactly supposed to go out on the piss with it,” he replied. “I don’t normally need it outside of the office, you’d usually only check it out to take it straight from one office or base to another. And yeah, some colleagues are a bit more relaxed, would leave it in a hotel room safe or at a private address. But I prefer to keep it where I can see it. I’d likely lose my career if it fell into the wrong hands.”

“So what are your initial thoughts?” Robin asked, pen poised over her notebook. “What did you mean by weird?”

Hardacre looked down at the evidence in front of him. “Well, firstly, I’m pretty sure these two—” he laid his hands on a couple of witness statements, one with a grainy photograph attached “—are the missing pieces that would have put Faulkner away at the time.” He ran a hand through his thinning mousy hair. “So they were there, and Oggy did remove them. I can’t for the life of me think why. But I’m betting it’s something to do with this,” he went on, picking up the sheet that was covered in Strike’s spidery handwriting.

“And that is?” Ilsa asked, also making notes.

“Well—” Hardacre hesitated, scanning the paper again. “Like I say, I’d have to read the file again. But to the best of what I can remember, this is carefully documented evidence of something I’m pretty sure didn’t happen.”

“Eh?” Wardle frowned across at him.

“Yeah,” the investigator mused. “It’s notes made on an interview between Oggy and Faulkner, in which Faulkner confesses to being involved in the drugs.”

Robin stared at him. “But you said he wasn’t.”

Hardacre shrugged. “He wasn’t.”

Ilsa rubbed her nose. “And that says he was?”

“Yeah. And these—” Hardacre indicated the other two papers “—are witness statements saying Faulkner was at one of the meetings, and a very poor photograph claiming to show him shaking hands with the local dealer, though I’m not sure it’s good enough to admit as evidence.” He squinted at the grainy picture. “But like I say, I’d need to compare it to the rest of the file.”

“Hang on,” Ilsa said. “I’m getting totally lost here. Can you start again for me?”

Hardacre sat back and pushed the file away, picked up his tea. “Right, loosely, from the top,” he began. “Oggy and I worked this case, took it over in a mess. There were drugs being smuggled into the Cyprus Army base and sold around, and an attempt had been made to stop it, using Faulkner as a pretend fence. The youngsters working the case had made a mess of it, and it was looking like Faulkner really was involved. We determined that he wasn’t, closed the ring, solved the case, job done. A few minor guys in the local platoon were sacked, but no one from SIB. Faulkner was one of ours, it would have been a big deal if it was him.”

He told the tale in a matter-of-fact manner, no pride or self-promotion. “But our superior at the time, a pompous idiot called Chambers, was furious. He was the one who was convinced it was Faulkner, or so he said. We always felt he was just trying to pin it on him. And clearly he felt we’d made him look stupid by proving it wasn’t Faulkner. He was sure the evidence was there. I guess he’d seen these.” Hardacre waved at the statements again. “But they weren’t there when we took over. Or at least I didn’t think they were. He was absolutely fuming, tried to get us demoted, labelled incompetent, the works. But the case was watertight and we were moved on.”

“And Corm’s interview with Faulkner?” Ilsa indicated the third sheet.

Hardacre shrugged. “No idea. As far as I know, that never happened. Without the other two, we had no reason to interview him under caution, no reason to suspect he was doing anything other than what he said, which was laying a trap for the real culprits.”

Silence fell over the table. Robin stared and stared at her notes in front of her, tapping them with the pen. What was she missing? Why did none of this make sense?

Wardle leaned forward. “Okay, someone’s got to say it,” he began slowly. “Surely we have to at least consider the option that Gooner did this deliberately to protect this Faulkner guy.”

“No,” Robin and Hardacre said simultaneously. There was a heated pause.

“Why not?” Ilsa asked quietly. Shocked, Robin turned to glare at her. Ilsa shrugged. “I don’t want to believe it any more than the rest of you,” she said, holding up her hands. “But we can’t throw out a possible solution simply because we don’t like it. All options have to be on the table.”

She was right. Robin took a deep breath and forced down her natural instincts screaming at her that there was no way, no way on earth that Strike, with his attention to detail, fierce pursuit of the truth and strong work ethic, would have done this. No way he would have tampered with evidence, hidden transcripts, stolen documents, to protect a colleague who was peddling drugs. It made no sense.

Wardle sighed. “I’m with Ilsa,” he said reluctantly. “Not that I think he did it, just that we can’t not consider the possibility. It’s a potential answer, like it or not, so it needs to be proven wrong, not just rejected because we know him. That’s not how detecting works.”

There was a short, tense silence. Hardacre nodded tightly.

“Right,” Robin said at last. “Graham, you go down to— Tulse Hill, was it? —and look at the digital records of the case tomorrow. Refamiliarise yourself with the file, see if there’s anything you’ve forgotten, any different way to look at things with these pieces of evidence in the mix.”

“Will do.” Hardacre nodded.

“Okay?” Robin looked around. “I think we can’t do any more in that direction until Graham has done that. So I want to move on.”

The others signalled their agreement, and Robin nodded and flicked back a page in her notebook. “Right. As you all know, I visited Cormoran yesterday.”

“Played the dutiful girlfriend,” Wardle said, grinning.

“Very well, apparently,” Hardacre added.

Robin looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve got eyes on the inside, keeping an eye on him,” Hardacre replied. “One of the wardens. Wouldn’t believe me when I said you’re not really together.”

Robin willed her cheeks not to go pink. “Like I said, Cormoran and I are used to playing a couple for various roles. Anyway, he was trying to give me a message.”

“I had no luck at work,” Ilsa interjected. “No one had heard of a cauliflower painting.”

“A what?” Wardle stared at them.

Robin filled the men in quickly.

Hardacre stared at her, a sceptical look on his face. “You sure he meant Cyprus?”

“Why else say a Mediterranean island? And it must be relevant.”

“Well, as you can imagine, Army bases are not known for their fine art. I’ve never yet seen one with a still life on display. The odd picture of the Queen, a coat of arms. But a painting of vegetables?”

There was a pause.

“What exactly did he say?” Ilsa asked eventually. “Word for word?”

Robin screwed up her face, trying to remember. “He said the still life by the door reminded him of something. That it was the cauliflower. And he said I’d said it looked Dutch. And that he’d seen it in a hotel lobby on an island in the Mediterranean.”

Wardle frowned at her. “Did he say which door?”

“The one at the far end, would have been on your right as you came in,” Robin replied, consulting her notes.

Wardle frowned. “Wasn’t it sculptures up that end? No paintings.”

Robin closed her eyes, her hands framing the shape of the room in front of her. “We hadn’t actually got to that end yet,” she said slowly. “We came in the main door and turned left, we were going round clockwise.”

“So what was over there that he meant? What had he seen by the door?” Ilsa asked.

Robin shrugged. “Only the heavies Eric brought.”

“They weren’t mine,” Wardle said swiftly. “The two officers I brought arrived in the car behind me, stood at the main entrance there and followed us back to Scotland Yard. The guys at the other doors were the Redcap goons they insisted on sending.”

Hardacre looked sharply at Robin. “What did the man at that door look like?”

Robin closed her eyes again, trying to remember. It had all happened so fast, and she’d been upset— _Think, Ellacott._

“He was a big guy, over six foot. Stocky, blond, close-cropped hair,” she said. “He looked rough, like a cliche of a bouncer.”

“Distinguishing features?” Hardacre was making swift notes.

“Too far to see his eye colour,” Robin replied. “But he had a smushed ear like a rugby player, I remember thinking he looked like a prop forward. My ex-husband played rugby,” she explained for the benefit of the men.

“A cauliflower ear,” Ilsa said quietly.

Robin looked at her. “What?”

“Yes! That’s your cauliflower reference,” Wardle exclaimed. “Clever.”

“So he didn’t mean a still life painting,” Ilsa said. “Just a guy standing still. With a cauliflower ear.”

“Who he’d seen in Cyprus.” Hardacre finished. They all turned to look at him, and he shrugged. “There was a guy there at the time with a cauliflower ear,” he said. “But he wasn’t Dutch, he was a Brit like us. He moved on not long after we arrived, to Germany. The youngsters we took over from were pretty relieved, think he’d been breathing down their necks, making them nervous. But like I say, he left not long after they did, reassigned. Not sure why he’s relevant.”

“Name?” Robin asked, scribbling notes.

“Vince something. Sounded like a cricketer name. Gower, Gooch, something like that. I could look him up.”

“Okay,” Robin nodded. “He’s relevant, I’m sure of it. Cormoran mentioned him specifically.”

“Probably mentioned him,” snorted Wardle. “That’s a pretty tenuous leap we’ve just made.”

“It’s important,” Robin insisted. “Worth looking him up.”

Hardacre nodded, adding the task to his to-do list.

“Right,” Robin said. “We done?”

Nods all round.

“Okay,” she said. “Um, I guess I’ll text you all about another meeting? See how you get on tomorrow, Graham. Who’s visiting Cormoran next?”

“I guess me, when I get news of a plea hearing,” Ilsa replied. “Still waiting to get a slot in front of a magistrate for him to enter a plea and apply for bail.”

“Which he presumably won’t get?” Wardle replied. “How will you swing that?”

Hardacre shrugged. “They’ll just say some bollocks about not giving him a chance to cover his tracks,” he replied. “Doesn’t really matter, no one on the inside who he’s trying to fool will know.”

Robin was packing her notebook and pen back into her bag. “I might try and see him again,” she said. “The girlfriend would go at least once a week, I guess. We just need to make sure one or other of us is there regularly enough that he can feed us anything he finds out. Right, I’m calling the meeting to a close. Stay in touch, guys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was very talky, and I have just written another a few chapters ahead that is, too. I promise there is action coming! I guess that’s part of setting up case fic?
> 
> Ooh, look, it’s exactly 20,000 words at this point. Neat!


	13. Strike

_Robin’s mouth under his, trembling like the first night he kissed her, tentative on the steps outside her flat—_

_Robin’s hair spread across his pillow, her head dropping back as he runs his lips down the pale column of her throat, tasting her sweat, feeling her writhe against him—_

_Robin’s breast in his hand, under his mouth, her soft cries in his ear drowning out the pumping of his blood as he nips and sucks at her, thrilling to the way her body shakes as he—_

_Robin, Robin, Robin, her groan as he fills her, the sweet, tight heat of her, her hips rocking back at him and her hands clutching at his sides as her gasps are lost in the thunder of his heartbeat, the fierce throb of his release—_

Strike shuddered awake with a gasp and a grunt, pulses of pleasure echoing through him, fading fast as he came to consciousness, surfacing from warm deliciousness to the reality of a cold, hard bunk facing a plain painted brick wall, to the rapidly cooling stickiness in his prison issue pyjama trousers, the slowing of his pounding heart.

He snorted a rueful laugh at himself as he caught his breath. _Fucking hell, Strike. When did you last do that?_ It had been years. His relationship with Robin was making him feel like a young man again in more ways than one.

He lay for long minutes, holding onto the last tendrils of pleasure, trying to stay in the cocoon of his dream, to recapture the warmth of her, the smell of her, the feel of her, but she was gone and he was alone under a scratchy blanket on a narrow bunk, the snores of his cell mate reverberating gently above him.

Presently he gave a long, slow sigh and accepted that he was awake for the day. He wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, and he was going to need to deal with his...situation at some point. Eventually.

Above him, Walker snorted and turned over, rocking the whole bunk, but at least he stopped snoring.

Strike pulled the blanket up higher over his shoulder, gazed at the wall and went over everything in his head for the millionth time.

Why had Gough been at the arrest? And did it matter? Could it have been coincidence? Every instinct in him had screamed not. He’d known the moment he’d seen the distant figure, stock still by the far door, watching him with narrowed eyes, that something more was going on here, something they hadn’t planned for, something Hardy wasn’t aware of, but it had been too late to do anything about it. He’d done his best to alert Robin, and then had just had to hope that he would get a moment alone with Wardle, but that hadn’t happened. There was no way to tell if the driver and passenger in the car Wardle had put him in were SIB, and once they were back at the Yard they were surrounded by Redcaps and he’d been swiftly handed over. He’d had no choice but to proceed as though everything were going to plan and worry about it later.

He rubbed big fingers across his forehead. It might mean nothing. He had the evidence as backup anyway, even if they were trying to screw him over, and now Hardy had it and would hopefully work out what it meant. He was certain he could trust Hardy to realise why he’d kept it all these years and not just go handing it over to the authorities where it could so easily get “lost”. Not for the first time, Strike fervently wished he’d taken copies and kept a backup set somewhere else, but where? If this had ever come up again, his own belongings would have been searched, and he couldn’t face any risk of Lucy or Ted and Joan... The Herberts had been the safest bet, and although he’d felt vaguely guilty about the presence of it in their house all this time, the chances of it ever being found there were vanishingly unlikely. He’d thought about how he might ask for the file back, copy it and then ask Ilsa to keep it again, but he hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible reason for doing so. In any case, he suspected Ilsa had forgotten she even had it, and it was safer that way. He didn’t want her thinking about it, wondering what was in it, asking lawyer-y questions that were hard to dodge. Besides, the more time had passed, the less likely any comeback had seemed, until he, too, had half forgotten the file’s existence, tucked away in a drawer in a desk in Wandsworth.

But now it mattered, and he was entirely in Hardy’s hands, trapped in here trying to feed half messages via Ilsa and Robin and hoping that they would all piece together the bigger picture. He wished, now, that he’d told Hardy everything at the time in Cyprus, but it had seemed safer to keep his thoughts inside his own head, safer for his partner and for himself, especially when he didn’t doubt his own ability to ensure the correct outcome. He’d had no actual proof, and opinion was not welcome in Army detective work that accepted only cold, hard facts.

His mind drifted back to Robin again, a smile ghosting across his face as it always did when he thought of her, which was most of the time. She had surprised him at every turn of their new relationship. He’d expected reticence. He’d expected, if he was honest, shyness, inexperience. Instead she had taken the lead, undressing for him the very next night after he’d first kissed her, dragging him into bed when he’d assumed coffee, maybe a few kisses... Not that he had been unwilling - surprised, delighted, yes, but never unwilling.

They’d slept together most days since, sometimes barely making it to five o’clock before locking up the office and repairing upstairs to his flat. One night she had crept into his bed after he was already asleep, late after her evening Zumba class and smoothies with Vanessa, after which she usually went home. He’d crashed out early, more exhausted than he was willing to admit to himself after weeks of full-time work, every other waking moment spent with Robin, minimal sleep. But he was nothing but delighted to be woken by her cold hands and warm breasts pressed against him, and another night of little sleep had passed in a haze of pleasure.

He’d certainly managed to catch up on rest since he’d been in prison. There was little else to do, and although the mornings were non-negotiable, he could go to bed as early as he liked at night, and often did, intending to read but falling asleep quickly, used to sleeping anywhere and everywhere. There was little point in approaching Faulkner too early, it would be far too obvious. So Strike had kept himself to himself, and confined their interaction to a nod of recognition across the yard, a brief greeting at the prison gym.

The morning bell sounded, and with a jump and a snort above him, Walker was awake too. Strike allowed himself a few more moments of reverie, of Robin in his thoughts, and then he set her aside and rolled over to start his day.


	14. Altered Evidence

“Robin. Are you alone? We’ve got a problem.”

Heart racing, Robin replied, “Hang on, Graham.” She set her mobile on her desk and moved over to the office door. “Hannah?”

Their efficient secretary, whom Robin was growing more fond of and grateful for by the day, looked up from a pile of invoices she was preparing.

“Could you hold all calls for a bit? I’ve got an important call on my mobile.”

“Will do, Robin.”

“Thanks.” With a tight smile, Robin clicked the door closed for privacy and hurried back to Strike’s desk. She snatched up her mobile. “Go on.”

She could hear Hardacre bustling about as he spoke to her. “I’m going back to Edinburgh, my train’s in an hour. I’m just packing now.”

“Why?”

“The file’s wrong.”

Robin’s heart lurched again. She dropped into her chair, her fingers scrabbling for a pen, for her notebook. “What do you mean, wrong?”

Hardacre’s frustrated sigh swooshed down the phone into her ear. “Well, for a start, that sheet with the interview, Oggy’s interview with Faulkner, is there. It’s in the file.”

Robin blinked, pen poised, hovering. “What? It can’t be. You’ve got it.”

“I know. This is the digital file I’ve looked at, remember.”

“So...someone’s tampered with it? Added stuff?”

“Yup.” Hardacre’s voice was grim. “And there are things missing, I’m sure of it.”

Alarm skittered around Robin’s body, racing with her blood, making her fingers shake. She set her pen down again. “So what are you going to do?”

“Go back to Edinburgh, get down into the records vault and pull the original paperwork. I can prove the original physical file and the official online evidence don’t match.”

“Okay.” Robin was thinking fast. “Leave Ilsa’s file here.”

“What?”

“Don’t take it with you. We can’t risk them being connected.”

There was a pause. “Robin, that file is quite safe with me.”

“I know,” Robin said, but she could practically hear the investigator’s scepticism over the phone. She gentled her voice a little. “Graham, I know. I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just saying, you don’t want to get caught with the evidence on you.”

“Caught? What are you talking about? It’s the evidence that proves the file has been altered.”

Robin hesitated. How could she explain her fear that this went far higher than Hardacre suspected? If he got stopped looking for the original file—

“And if it falls into the wrong hands, and finds its way into the physical file, so that they do match...”

There was a brief silence. Hardacre had stopped moving about.

“Okay,” he said eventually. “But you’ll have to meet me at Euston. I don’t have time to come via your office.”

“I’m on my way.”

Hardacre rang off without a goodbye, but Robin didn’t have the time or, frankly, the patience to soothe an ego upset by aspersions cast on the SIB and his superiors. Maybe she was wrong and it was just a hunch, but she didn’t want the evidence that could protect Strike, that he’d hidden for so long at the Herberts’, disappearing off to Scotland. She wanted it here, where she could keep an eye on it.

“I’m going out for an hour,” she told Hannah, hurriedly pulling on her beige trench coat. “Can you ring Andy Hutchins, ask him to pick up Redhead after her aquarobics later and follow her home?”

Hannah was becoming accustomed to sudden changes of schedule. Unflappable, she nodded, reaching for the phone. “Will do.”

“Thank you,” Robin said again, and then she was out of the door and clattering down the metal stairs. What she was actually going to do with the evidence, where she could hide it, was something she’d worry about later.

As was habit now, she glanced all around as she stepped out into the street, but she could see no obvious paparazzi. Having doorstepped the business for two days when Strike was first arrested, the press had got bored and the story had gone quiet - Robin supposed that they knew not much would happen until any case against him went to court, and she’d refused to even acknowledge any attempt to engage her in conversation, so they had swiftly given up. A couple of small bylines speculating, and the world had moved on, for which she was grateful.

It didn’t take her long to get to Euston - from Tottenham Court Road it was almost quicker to walk than take the Tube, but Robin chose the Tube for speed. She arrived before Hardacre, and texted him to say that she’d wait on the main concourse, by Cafe Ritazza. She wasn’t a huge fan of their coffee, but she bought a cup to pass the time, and stood and watched passengers milling in the middle of the huge, open concourse, watching the bank of departure boards above their heads. Every so often, a train would be announced and large swathes of people would sweep towards the relevant platform.

She sipped her coffee and tried to crush her worry and think logically.

That piece of evidence had been in Ilsa’s study drawer since at least... Robin had only the haziest idea of Strike’s timeline before she’d met him, but she knew that he’d been whole and well in 2005 when this original Cyprus drugs bust had taken place and he’d been dating Tracey. It must well over five years that that file had sat there. And now suddenly the evidence had surfaced. Someone must have managed to make some kind of digital copy before Strike had hidden the file.

Another train announcement. A surge of people rushing towards their platform, flowing around her like a river, each in their own bubble of consciousness, acknowledging neither her nor each other. Robin eased closer to the side of the cafe outlet and took another sip of coffee.

It was logical to assume that the evidence had been copied at the time. Ilsa had said Strike had had the file in storage before he’d given it to her. Robin supposed it was possible that someone had broken into a storage locker somewhere, taken the file, copied it and then broken in again to put it back, but that made no sense. Why not just take it, full stop?

She glanced at her watch. There was only ten minutes left until the Edinburgh train was due to depart. A pang of concern tugged at her, just as she looked up to see Hardacre hurrying towards her.

“Bloody Tube,” he was muttering. “Taken an age to get here. Thanks for meeting me.”

Robin smiled up at him. “Thanks for the file,” she replied as Hardacre parked his wheeled suitcase and fished in the side pocket of his laptop bag. He pulled the grey file out and handed it to her, and Robin resisted a sudden urge to open it and check everything was there. She sensed she’d put Strike’s old colleague off side a little already with her request; she didn’t need to antagonise him any more.

He merely nodded at her curtly. “Makes sense to leave it here with you, with the rest of the case,” he muttered. He hesitated. “I’m not sure they’ll let me bring the original documents away from Edinburgh,” he said. “It’d be highly irregular. I may have to stay up there and keep an eye on it.”

Robin nodded. “We can talk on the phone.”

Hardacre hesitated for just a moment, and suddenly Robin was thinking about wiretapped phones, bugged offices, and wondering if she was being paranoid or sensible to be thinking such things. But Hardacre nodded.

“Keep that safe.” He indicated the file that Robin was tucking into her big handbag. “It might be all the proof we’ve got that something odd is going on.”

“I will,” Robin promised.

Another announcement began, another surge of people. “That’s me,” Hardacre said. He held out a hand, and Robin shook it formally. “Thank you, Graham.”

He gave her an unexpected grin. “We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he promised. “Tell Oggy to sit tight and work on his end of the deal. Sooner we get him out of there, the better.”

“Agreed,” Robin said fervently. “I will do.”

Hardacre withdrew his hand, and with a little wave of his fingers, he was gone. Robin paused a moment, watching him disappear into the steam of people, and then slipped a hand into the file in her handbag, opening it just enough to peer in.

Everything was there. She shook her head a little at herself. _Cormoran trusts this guy, so you have to too,_ she reminded herself firmly, and turned and made her way briskly back across the concourse. It was a nice day; she could walk back to the office and finish her slightly disappointing coffee on the way.


	15. Doctor Herbert

“Are you getting plenty of time in the gym?”

Strike rolled his eyes. “Yes, doctor.”

Nick grinned at him, pushing Strike’s bad knee up towards his chest where he lay half reclined on an examining table in the prison’s medical wing. He had one hand braced on his friend’s thigh and the other on what remained of his shin, gently pushing a little further. “Tell me when it hurts.”

“That would have been about twenty degrees ago,” Strike muttered through gritted teeth.

Nick shook his head slightly, straightening the leg out again slowly. “Do you do _any_ of the exercises they give you?”

Strike glanced around. The bustle in the room had abated somewhat, the couple of nurses they’d seen wandering off.

“You don’t need to actually bloody examine me,” he muttered.

“Yeah, but while I’m here—” Nick replied mildly, unperturbed. “You looking after the stump?”

“Yes,” Strike said impatiently. “Listen, you need to tell Robin about the guy at the gallery—”

“They’re on it,” Nick said smoothly, raising the leg again and slowly moving it back towards Strike’s chest. An orderly strolled past. “Is there a rowing machine in the gym? Might be worth a go - very gently.”

“What do you mean they’re on it?”

Nick sighed and straightened Strike’s leg out again. “George is back up north, checking out old records,” he replied.

“Why?”

Nick gently pressed down on the leg, straightening it fully. “Does that hurt, if I push your knee down onto the bed?”

“Yes, it fucking does. Stop it, will you?”

Nick sighed again and removed his hands, resting his knuckles on the bench next to Strike’s knee. “The third sheet, the one that’s in your writing, is in the digital file,” he muttered.

Strike stared up at him, pain forgotten. “What? That’s impossible.”

Nick shrugged. “Hardacre saw it himself.”

“It’s not been out of my possession since we left.” Strike was thinking fast. “Something’s not right—”

A nurse appeared, a young man, but large. Nick supposed it helped, having a bit of beef to the nursing staff in prison medical facilities. “Anything I can help you with, doctor?”

Nick gave him his best charming grin. “Have you got any ibuprofen gel?”

The nurse nodded and withdrew.

“They know,” Nick murmured, drawing Strike’s knee up again and moving to sit next to his left boot where it lay on the table. “They’re looking up the guy you saw, and Har...George has gone back to Scotland to check the original records.” He linked his hands together behind the top of Strike’s calf and pulled, gently but firmly. “That hurt?”

“Miraculously, no.”

Nick ignored his friend’s grumpy tone. “Good,” he replied. “The structure of the knee is sound and there’s no clicking. You’re probably just battling old scar tissue.”

“Same as always.” Strike waved a dismissive hand.

Nick raised an eyebrow at him. “And same as always, if you let it seize up, they’ll have to operate to free it eventually. You have to keep it mobile if you don’t want to lose any more range of movement.”

He looked up as the nurse reappeared with a tube of gel, choosing to ignore Strike’s mutinous scowl. “Thanks,” he said. The nurse hovered, but Nick turned away, and after a little hesitation, the young man left again.

“Roll your trouser leg up,” Nick instructed.

“You’re enjoying this,” Strike accused, doing as he was told. Nick grinned at him.

“Would you be letting me anywhere near your leg if you didn’t have to?”

“No. I have appointments for that.”

“And when did you last go?” Nick raised the leg again, peering at the smooth skin that encased the end of his friend’s truncated tibia, tutting a little at a red patch of irritation.

“I’ve been going.”

Nick raised a sceptical eyebrow, unscrewing the top from the tube of gel. “Really?”

Strike stuck out his lower lip, scowling again. “Robin makes me.”

Nick roared with laughter. “Why does that not surprise me? How does she do that, kidnap you?”

Strike gave a rueful grin, knowing he was being a grumpy shit. “No, she just clears the diary and rearranges everything so there’s no reason I can’t. And last time she suddenly started talking about her breathing exercises two days before and how much they’re helping. I couldn’t really not go,” he muttered, recalling how he’d somehow felt manoeuvred at the time, but without quite working out how.

Nick grinned, his long fingers spreading the gel over the sides of Strike’s sore knee, expertly massaging it into the soft tissues. “I guess not.”

Strike sighed and lay back and looked at the ceiling. He didn’t particularly want Nick messing with his leg, but he had to admit, if only to himself, that it was helping. Nick was smearing more gel into the end of his stump now, and the warm comfort of it was soothing.

“Someone copied that document at the time, and has been keeping it,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “That must narrow it down.”

“Big base in Cyprus, though,” Nick muttered back, replacing the lid on the tube and setting it aside. “Give that a minute to work.” He sat back and watched his friend, wondering if his eyes were closed to think, or against the pain.

“Someone’s trying to fit me up,” Strike went on in a low voice. “It’s going to look like I really did tamper with the file. I’ll be stuck in here, then left with a criminal record, falsifying evidence. Not good in my line of work.”

“You’ve got the proof, though.”

Strike snorted. “Hardy has. My life - well, my career - is literally in his hands.”

“Actually, I think Robin may have it now.”

This appeared to please the detective. “Tell her to hide it well.”

“I will. How’s the knee now?”

“Better,” Strike grunted.

There was a pause. Strike hunted systematically through his memory.

“Gough was gone by then,” he was muttering now. “But if he was the one who—”

“So is he allowed to take the gel back with him?” Nick asked, cutting into Strike’s thought processes. Strike opened his eyes.

The nurse was back, hovering helpfully. “I can ask.”

“Great, thanks,” Nick replied in a tone that held a good hint of dismissal, but the nurse showed no signs of leaving again. Nick picked up Strike’s leg and began to gently manipulate the knee again.

“It’ll be sore tomorrow, I’m pushing it a bit,” he warned, and Strike have him a hooded glare.

“I know,” he replied, teeth gritted again.

“Gel three times a day, but try to keep it moving if you can.”

Strike sighed and nodded.

“All done?” the nurse asked brightly. Reluctantly, Nick nodded too.

“Excellent, thank you, doctor. I’ll show you out,” the nurse replied. “If you’d like to reattach your leg, Mr Strike, and wait there, I’ll be back to walk you down.”

Strike grunted agreement, and Nick reached out and shook his hand.

“Thanks, doc,” Strike grinned, and Nick smiled at him.

“Take care,” he replied. “Sit tight. It’ll get better.”

“Hm.”

And then Nick was gone, leaving Strike to the painful task of reattaching his prosthesis and trying to work out who from all those years ago might be trying to frame him now, and why.

It was time to talk to Faulkner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who’d have thought being the owner of a Dodgy Knee™️ would come in handy?


	16. The Archived File

The second meeting at the Herberts’ house began as a much-reduced affair, with Graham Hardacre still in Edinburgh and Wardle running late dealing with a series of arrests on another case. Robin and Ilsa sat at the dining table with mugs of tea, while Nick, who had his younger brother over for the evening, was ensconced in the living room, from which occasional shouts could be heard.

“FIFA,” Ilsa said succinctly, rolling her eyes, and Robin giggled. It was a source of long-standing frustration for Nick that he could never beat Spanner in a match, no matter how carefully he assembled his all-time greats Spurs team. As Ilsa frequently pointed out to him, he didn’t put in anything like the hours of practice that his brother did, but Nick still grumbled that the superior team should win. Ilsa had grinned and murmured to Robin that the real rankle was Nick’s historic suspicion that Spanner, who had never really been all that interested in football, had chosen Chelsea to support in defiance of his father and big brother purely to be annoying.

“Any news from Graham?” Ilsa asked, sipping her tea.

Robin shook her head. “Nothing,” she replied. “But he won’t have made it in to the office last night, he didn’t leave till mid afternoon. How did Nick get on?”

“He got a name for cauliflower ear guy,” Ilsa replied, flipping pages in her notebook. She had interviewed her husband in detail when he’d got home from the prison visit, much to his amusement. “Gough.”

“Cricketer name,” Robin mused, remembering Hardacre’s guess.

“Yeah. And Corm confirmed he’s never let that file out of his possession, so it must have been copied at the time.”

“Yeah, we figured that must be the case.”

“Corm thinks someone’s trying to frame him,” Ilsa said.

“That would be the logical conclusion.”

“But who? And why?”

“Exactly.” Robin sighed and looked back through her notes. “Even if someone was pissed off about the way he handled the case at the time, what use is it to them to lock him up all these years later? He’s not even in the Army any more.”

Ilsa shrugged, setting her tea down. “Petty vengeance?”

Robin pulled a face. “Someone high enough up to have the clearance to tamper with online records undetected, and yet willing to risk doing that to pay back a decade-old grudge?”

Ilsa sighed. “Yeah. Unlikely.”

The doorbell rang. Before Ilsa could get up, the living room door opened and Nick was on his way to answer it. They heard Wardle’s voice apologising for being late, the two men greeting each other. An inevitable smattering of Spurs-based small talk followed, which drew Spanner out of the living room to join in, and the three men moved down the hallway and into the kitchen. Wardle greeted Ilsa and Robin while Nick went to put the kettle on. Spanner swiftly gravitated towards Robin, asking her how she was, making jokes and trying to get her to laugh, and Ilsa internally rolled her eyes a little; she was surprised that the presence of Robin hadn’t drawn Spanner from the living room before now.

The meeting had fallen apart into general chat and tea-making, Nick faffing with the kettle and still bantering with Wardle about football and Spanner doing his slightly clumsy best to chat up Robin, when Robin’s mobile, sat on the table next to her notepad, rang. She snatched it up swiftly.

“Graham,” she said, and answered. “Hi, Graham. Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker. I’m here, and Ilsa and Eric, and Nick and his brother Dan.”

She set the phone in the middle of the table. Disembodied, Hardarce’s “um...” sounded uncertain.

Ilsa leaned forward. “We trust Dan, it’s okay,” she said.

“Yeah, he does our IT,” Robin added. “Probably knows as much about our cases as we do, if he cared to look.”

“Which he doesn’t - not interested,” drawled Spanner, earning him a smile from Robin.

“Okay,” Hardacre said doubtfully.

“How did you get on?” Robin asked. “With the file?”

Hardacre hesitated again. “Well, that’s why I didn’t ring till I’ve got home again,” he said finally. “The file’s not there.”

Suddenly everyone was listening intently.

“Not there?” Robin asked, her heart fluttering again.

“Nope. I hunted high and low. The system is pretty good, it wasn’t where it was supposed to be in the vault and there aren’t too many other places it could be, but I looked anyway. Spent most of the day on it. I’m sure it’s not there.”

“So where is it?” Ilsa asked.

“No idea. All physical files have to be checked out by an officer above a certain grade. I went back through the logs, ran every search I could think of. No one checked it out that I could see.”

“So it’s just...gone?” Robin said.

“Yup.” Hardacre sounded grim.

“So the only record now of what happened is the digital file?” Ilsa added.

“Yup. Which has been tampered with.”

Spanner turned from where he was poking a herbal tea bag in a mug on the kitchen side, his ears pricking up suddenly. “How do you know?”

“Who’s that?” Hardacre asked testily.

“Spanner,” the young man replied, moving towards the table, mug in hand.

“Span—?”

“Nick’s brother,” Robin explained impatiently.

“Right. Well, I know it’s been tampered with because there’s a document in there that can’t be there, that wasn’t at the time.”

“When was it added?” Spanner asked, leaning over the table now.

“I don’t know. Listen, who—?”

“It’ll be time stamped,” Spanner interrupted him. “The alteration. It’ll be in the code, or the logs somewhere. When it was altered, and the IP address it was done from.”

“I’d imagine whoever did it would be careful to cover their tracks.” Hardacre’s tone bordered on condescending.

Unperturbed, Spanner shrugged. “You’d imagine wrong, usually. You wouldn’t believe how tech illiterate most people are. And even if they think they’ve wiped all record, a good IT person could find it. Want me to look?”

“Let a civilian into Army systems to poke around in the online records database?” Hardacre’s voice was now three parts scepticism and one part annoyance.

Spanner shrugged again. “A _really_ good IT person could get in anyway. If it’s online, it’s hackable. And there will be a signature there, you just have to find it. Coming, Nick?” And he strolled out of the room, back towards the unfinished FIFA tournament.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Nick replied, moving to the table to set a mug of tea in front of Wardle, who nodded his thanks.

There was a silence which, Robin was sure, had a slightly frosty quality in the air above her mobile phone.

“Anyway,” she said. “Maybe that’s something your IT guys could look into, Graham.”

“Yeah,” he replied heavily. “Starting to wonder who it’s safe to talk to.”

“Indeed,” Robin replied, glad that the SIB officer was finally coming around to the idea that his own colleagues might not be all they seemed. “Right, Nick, you saw Cormoran yesterday.”

“Yeah.” Nick drew up a chair, his own tea in front of him. “Long story short, he’s sure that document could only have been copied at the time, it’s been hidden since.”

“Makes sense,” Hardacre replied. “So this Gough - that’s the guy he saw, at the arrest, I looked him up - could have—”

“Nope,” Nick broke in. “Oggy said he’d gone.”

Hardacre sighed. “He did leave pretty smartish after we arrived. I wondered why he was relevant.”

“Maybe he’s not,” Wardle replied. “Why send him to be at the arrest if he was?”

Robin ran her hands over her face, frustrated. Why did they always end up with more questions than answers at every turn? “He has to be relevant,” she insisted. “Cormoran said so.”

“Anything else?” Wardle asked Nick, who shook his head.

“They didn’t leave us alone much,” he said. “Nurses hovering. I told him you guys were on the case, and to sit tight.”

“Not much else he can do.” Ilsa sighed.

“And he told me to tell you,” Nick turned to Robin, “to hide that file really well.”

Robin nodded, suddenly feeling that her initial instinct, which had been to tape it to the underside of Strike’s desk in his office, was rather more akin to something out of a Famous Five book than the clever hiding place that she’d thought in to be in her hurry the previous evening. She’d need to think of somewhere better.

“God, yeah,” echoed Hardacre’s disembodied voice. “That’s all the evidence we’ve got now.”

Ilsa stared at her notes. “But we don’t even know how it helps yet.”

“No, but Oggy does,” Nick replied. “I’m sure of it.”

There was another pause for tea-sipping and thinking. On the other end of the line, Hardacre sighed.

“Something happened at the time that Oggy didn’t tell me,” he said grimly.

“Looks like it,” Robin replied. “And we can’t ask him what it is.”

There was another pause.

“Right, well, if I’m done?” Nick said, standing up and picking up his tea. Robin nodded, and Nick went back to the living room with a vague wave.

“Okay, it’s just the four of us now, Graham,” Robin said. “You, me, Ilsa, Eric. Next steps?”

“Plea hearing,” Ilsa replied.

Robin looked at her sharply. “You’ve got a date?”

Ilsa nodded. “Day after tomorrow.”

“And he’s going to plead not guilty?” Wardle asked.

“Yup. Because he isn’t, but also because we need to drag this out as long as we can and retain the possibility of an abrupt release when the charges are dropped.”

“The charges that the prosecution can currently prove are true?” Wardle raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. We need time.” Ilsa said, frustrated.

“We need to talk to Cormoran,” Robin said. “Find out what happened in Cyprus that he never told Graham.”

“I’m going in tomorrow to discuss the plea hearing,” Ilsa replied.

Robin shook her head. “We need to talk to him away from that bloody place and all the listening ears,” she said. She turned to Wardle. “Is there any way one of us could get a few minutes alone with him while he’s being moved to court to enter his plea? A side room he could see his lawyer in or something?”

“CCTV,” Ilsa pointed out. “It’s everywhere these days.”

“With sound?”

“You can’t always tell.”

Wardle swallowed the last of his tea. “Leave it with me,” he said. “I’ll try and think of something.”

Robin nodded. “Okay. Any other business?”

Silence. Ilsa and Wardle shook their heads.

“Right. Meeting closed. Thanks, guys.”


	17. Strike talks to Faulkner

It took another few days for a natural opportunity for Strike to talk to Faulkner to present itself, days during which Strike walked slowly around the yard area, worked gently on his knee in the gym, applied his ibuprofen gel and silently cursed Nick on a regular basis.

He had to grudgingly admit his friend had been right. With the range of movement in his knee gradually increasing, he walked more easily and naturally, and put less weight on his prosthesis. With the help of the pain relief, he was able to manage a much more natural walk after the first day of limping, which in turn helped his stump, which then helped him limp even less... It was the exact opposite of the negative spiral he usually found himself in, and was a timely, if annoying, reminder of how much easier his life would be if he took care of his leg properly.

Strike was beginning to wonder how long he was going to be stuck in the Army prison. Nick’s news had alarmed and reassured in equal measure. Clearly someone was trying to make sure they could keep him in here, but Hardy would work out who, and Robin had the evidence that would exonerate him when it actually came down to it...

Robin. She was visiting regularly, and it was both wonderful to see her and sweet torture not to be able to touch her beyond the odd brush of fingers. Sometimes she fed him snippets of information; he knew Hardacre was still in Edinburgh. Mostly she talked about work, filling him in on what she could of their cases, making him miss the office. He rather liked the idea of her at his desk, being the boss, and had indulged in the odd reverie about that when bored, imaging what other uses the sturdy piece of furniture could be put to. Perhaps it was time to relax the “not in the office” rule, maybe change it to a “not between nine and five” rule...

But he also missed the work, and in particular the camaraderie. He and Robin worked so well together. It sounded as though everything was running smoothly in his absence, and he’d expected nothing less of her calm capability, but he couldn’t help the odd pang - it was his business, that he’d spent so many years and so much blood, sweat and tears on (almost literally), and he wanted to be there.

Seeing Faulkner also exercising (the quadrangle was laughingly called a field by the wardens; it was indeed larger than most, with some patchy areas of grass, but still), Strike deliberately paused on a bench by the far wall, as far away from the wardens as he could get, to smoke.

As he’d hoped, Faulkner circled around to him and sat down. Strike offered him a cigarette; with a grunt of thanks, Faulkner took one and they sat and smoked in quiet, watching the other prisoners. A few played basketball. One or two jogged steady circuits. Most strolled and chatted.

“How come you’re here?” Faulkner asked finally.

Strike had thought hard about how much to reveal. His brief had been to get Faulkner to admit that he was involved in a larger drugs ring within the Army, their man on the inside in the SIB paid a hefty cut to turn a blind eye and misdirect on cases, finally caught. He was beginning to strongly suspect that there was more to this than met the eye - someone appeared to be trying to frame them for the same crime.

“Apparently, falsifying evidence,” he replied guardedly.

Faulkner flicked ash onto the ground and snorted a laugh. “Seems we’re all at it.”

Strike took another drag of his cigarette. If he intimated to Faulkner that he thought this went higher up, and Faulkner really was in on it—

“Yeah. Seems so.”

“Or is being made to seem so,” Faulkner added.

“Indeed.”

They sat in quiet, finishing their cigarettes, each trying to weigh the other up, second-guess the other man’s motives.

Strike drew the packet from his pocket and offered another. Faulkner took it. They both knew cigarettes were currency in prison. Information was being bought.

Faulkner had less to lose.

“You kept me out of prison in Cyprus,” he said in a low voice. “But they caught up with me in the end.”

“Shouldn’t peddle drugs, then,” Strike replied mildly. He drew on his cigarette and gazed into the distance.

Faulkner gave a brief, bitter laugh, a sound of frustration but also resignation. “Or appear to, which amounts to the same thing.”

“It doesn’t. Morally.”

“Legally it makes no difference.”

Strike glanced at him sideways. Faulkner looked away.

“Look, Strike,” he said in a sudden rush, his voice still low. “I don’t know why you’re here, what they’re trying to get you to get from me. But I never did any of it, and they know that. Nothing added up, they’ve falsified, changed dates, faked evidence. If that’s what you’re really in for, then maybe you were in on it all, in which case I don’t know what Cyprus was about, and fuck you.”

He took a last, fierce, angry drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out under his heel, then went on, exhaled smoke curling from him as he spoke. “But if you’re still somehow on the right side, watch your back. They’ll tip you over onto my side just as easy as they did me, and you’ll be stuck here too serving time for something you never did, a fake undercover op that went wrong.”

He got up and walked away, his casual pace belying the tension in his shoulders, the anger in his jaw.

Strike watched him go, finishing his cigarette and thinking.


	18. How to Interrogate a Witness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is The Chapter™️ - notes at the end give away the content, which is why they’re at the end 😊

Strike stood waiting by the prisoners’ entrance to the car park, feeling oddly apprehensive. He had no need to - it was just a plea hearing, Ilsa had said. He would need to confirm his name and address, enter his official plea of not guilty, allow her to submit his application for bail, and that would be it. It rarely took ten minutes, she’d told him. Just an inordinate amount of waiting around.

He shifted a little, uncomfortable in his pressed Army gear. He was no longer entitled to wear the Royal Military Police dress uniform, and his suit and dress shirt that he’d arrived in weren’t really suitable for a court appearance - he’d have preferred something less ostentatiously dressy. So he’d opted for the basic Army khaki shirt and trousers with no insignia, glad to no longer have to buckle himself into full dress regalia. The handcuffs around his wrists in front of him rattled a little. The warden stood impassively beside him.

A sharp rap on the door, and the warden opened it to reveal Eric Wardle. Paperwork was exchanged, ID shown and inspected, keys handed over, and then Strike stepped out into the car park, blinking against the light even though it was overcast, while Wardle took his arm and steered him towards the waiting police transport van.

“Were the handcuffs really necessary?” Strike muttered out of the side of his mouth as they approached the van.

Wardle smirked. “Maybe not, but allow me to enjoy it,” he said, grinning, as he reached for the handle and swung the door open. “Up you go.”

Focused as he was on the steps, on maintaining his balance as he hauled himself up with his hands, still locked together, gripping the side of the van’s internal cage, Strike didn’t notice he wasn’t alone until he swung himself onto the bench seat that ran along the side of the van. Settling with a grunt, he found himself face to face with Robin, who sat pressed back behind the other door which Wardle hadn’t opened so that she might remain invisible from outside.

“You haven’t got long,” Wardle muttered in a low voice. “It isn’t far, maybe fifteen minutes if we don’t hit traffic.” He grinned at Robin. “You might need these. I’ll leave you to decide.” He tossed the handcuff keys to her, and Robin caught them automatically. Wardle gave her an outrageous wink, and slammed the door.

Strike stared at Robin, his mouth dry all of a sudden. She gazed back at him, her eyes luminous in the dim light from the long, narrow bulletproof glass windows above them. “What are you doing here?” he managed, his voice a little hoarse.

“Exchange of information,” she murmured. The van rocked as Wardle swung himself into the front, and then the engine started with a shudder and a growl.

Frozen, Strike simply stared, drinking in the vision in front of him. Robin, dressed for court in a neat navy pencil skirt and smart brown shoes, a cream blouse with ruffles down the front that nestled between her breasts and made him want to bury his face there too.

The van jerked into motion and they both swayed. Strike grabbed at the bars on the inside of the door.

“Here,” Robin reached for his shoulder to steady herself as she stepped across to sit next to him. She leaned to take his hands and began to try to fumble the key into the handcuffs, but Strike captured her hands in both of his. Robin paused and looked up at him.

“Kiss me,” he said hoarsely, his mouth reaching for hers.

She met him eagerly, her lips parting for him, and she tasted like sweet heaven, like all his dreams and most of his waking moments these days. His tongue licked into her mouth and desire surged at once, fizzing through his veins.

“I missed you,” she muttered against his mouth, drawing away just enough to form the words, and then he was kissing her lips, her jaw, her cheek, tasting her tears as she clutched his hands and pulled him closer, half turned sideways on the bench, awkward and clumsy and just trying to be nearer.

“Cormoran—” Robin gasped as his roving lips sought her neck.

“Robin,” he murmured back, rubbing his smooth, clean-shaven cheek against hers, revelling in the way she arched against him. “God, you smell good. I can’t believe you’re here.” His mouth found her throat, sucking gently at her, thrilling to the way she shivered and moaned, her pulse jumping beneath his lips.

The van drew to a halt. Gasping, Robin pulled back. “Cormoran, we have to talk—”

Distantly, the sound of huge metal gates opening. They were leaving the prison compound.

“What about?” Strike muttered, nosing up against her temple, smelling her hair, burying his face—

“About the case.”

“Fuck the case,” he growled. His hands, still joined together, had moved to her lap, to her thigh, to her hip. The van lurched into motion again and they almost fell against the rear doors, half entwined.

Giggling, Robin pulled back, levering herself off him. “Here,” she said again, reaching for his wrists. “Let’s at least get you out of these before we end up on the floor.”

Strike grinned at her as she focused on the handcuffs, trying to slot the little key in. “I can think of worse ideas.”

Robin shot him a heated look that sent blood rushing south, but a wry smile pulled at her mouth. “Absolutely no way, mister. That floor is disgusting.”

With a small sound of satisfaction, she twisted her wrist and the handcuffs opened. Strike pulled his wrists free, massaging the red marks they’d left on his skin, and immediately reached for her again. “Where were we?”

Robin caught his large hands in her smaller ones, laughing. “Talking.”

“I wasn’t talking.” He kissed her again, and felt her melt into him at once. A moment of fierce pride that he could overcome her resistance so easily was swamped by a powerful wave of lust. It didn’t seem possible that she could be here, in his arms, her tongue in his mouth and her waist under his hands. He’d missed this so much.

“Cormoran—” Robin’s hands were on his chest, gently pushing him away. “The file is missing.”

“What file?” His brain was fogged. Only the taste and feel of Robin mattered. His hands splayed around her waist, sliding up to brush the undersides of her breasts, longing to touch her soft, creamy skin.

“The original paper copies of the Cyprus file. Graham went to get it from storage and it’s gone.”

Momentarily distracted from her breasts, Strike met her gaze. A shudder ran through him at the sight of her glazed blue-grey eyes, pupils blown wide. “Gone?”

“Mm-hm. So the online record is all we have. And it shows Faulkner confessed to you.”

Strike blinked, trying to focus. “I don’t think he did it.”

“You said.”

“No, I mean any of it.” The buttons on her blouse were begging to be undone. His fingers reached for the top one, just below the pulse he could see fluttering in her throat.

“What are you doing?”

He chuckled a little, undoing another button, his fingers ghosting across her collarbone, making her shiver. “Trying to make out with you in the back of a police van.”

“Cormoran, concentrate,” Robin whispered, but the silky cream material was parting now and he could see the tops of her breasts, sweetly swelling curves in the slanting daylight from above. He ached to taste her.

“I think Faulkner was framed,” he managed, lowering his head to her chest, cupping her gorgeous breasts to lift them gently towards his lips. “For all of it. He’s as innocent as I am.”

“But why?” Her voice slipped into a groan as his mouth found her nipple through her ivory silk bra, grazing it with his teeth. “Cormoran, _fuck_ —”

“Good idea,” he rasped, his body singing with lust at the sound of her groan. “Come here.” He couldn’t keep bending to her, desperately uncomfortable where his rigid cock was constrained within the smart Army trousers. He pulled at her hips, encouraging her onto his lap, and to his delight she wriggled her skirt up over her thighs and swung herself onto him, straddling him.

She was at the perfect height to kiss her, and so he did, capturing her lips again. They kissed fiercely as the van swayed through London traffic, oblivious to any noises from outside.

Eventually Robin drew back, gasping. “Can Wardle see us?”

“Don’t care.” Strike buried his face in her neck again, rocking his hips to hers, desperate, urgent.

“I care,” Robin squeaked, but it turned into a moan as he sucked at her skin and nipped at her collarbone. Her hands were on his shirt buttons now, fumbling at them, and then his chest was bared and she was pressing her breasts against him, and pleasure surged through him. He couldn’t think of anything except _Robin_ —

“We need to know what happened in Cyprus,” she gasped as he dipped a hand down between them, sliding it between her legs, and _Christ_ , she was so wet, wet and ready for him. His fingers stroked across her knickers and she gave a low cry of need that send a bolt of lust straight to his groin, making his cock impossibly harder.

“Gough had faked those other pieces of evidence framing Faulkner,” he muttered. “Or made the other lads do it. That’s why I took them out.” Robin was pulling at his belt now, yanking at the button on his trousers, shoving the zip down.

“But he left when you got there?” Robin dipped her hands into his trousers and they both groaned as her fingers found his hard length, stroking, pulling him out.

“Yeah. _Christ_ , Robin, don’t do that,” Strike gasped as she closed her hand around him, squeezing, caressing. Desire and need coalesced into a fierce ache deep in his body. “I’ll never last.”

“So then what happened?” Robin raised herself up, her knees braced on the bench, sliding a hand under herself to tug her knickers aside, angling herself closer. The van swayed and Strike clutched at her waist, planting his feet further apart, his hips canting to hers, desperate to feel her heat on him.

“Uh—” He couldn’t think of anything except the overwhelming need to be inside her.

“Cormoran!” Breathless, grinning, she’d stopped, hovering tantalisingly above him, her panting breaths making her breasts heave right in front of his face.

“Fuck, Robin, I can’t think—”

“Shall we stop so you can?”

“God, no, please,” he begged. “Um, Chambers ordered me to write that fake interview.”

“And you did it?” She lowered herself just a little, and he could feel the heat of her, her wetness, slick against the head of his cock, a surge of pleasure making his hips buck up against her helplessly, needing more. Again, she stopped.

“ _Fuck_ , Robin, Jesus—”

“Keep talking,” she admonished him, her eyes blazing with lust, nearly as wrecked as he was.

“Yes, I did it,” he gasped. “But I made him sign off on it. I was never going to include it, I was going to use it against him—”

“But?” She rocked just a little, notching the head of his aching cock inside her and then sliding free again.

“Ro _bin_ —” Strike groaned. “Okay, um— Yeah, it wasn’t enough on its own. I hoped he’d reveal himself at the end, he had a reputation for running his mouth off when he was pissed off enough, and I annoyed him plenty by fucking up his plan. But he didn’t. He yelled about everything else under the sun, but not that. So I just kept the stuff for insurance and moved on. We’d got the right result. Robin, _please_ —”

She sank down onto him, and a low cry of pleasure and need escaped him. She felt incredible, swollen tight and so hot. All control gone, he thrust up into her, his hands sliding around her arse, dragging her up and down against him.

Gasping, Robin spread her thighs wider, her fingers clutching at the cage mesh either side of his head, pulling herself up, grinding down against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. Somehow they found a rhythm, messy, clumsy, desperate.

“God, you feel so good— Fuck, Robin—”

Her only answer was a shaky whimper of agreement, her body trembling with the effort, with the pleasure.

Strike wasn’t going to last, had no hope under the combined weight of their enforced separation and the unexpectedness of the encounter, but even as the thought ghosted through what was left of his brain that wasn’t flooded with lust, Robin gave a small cry and convulsed against him, curling over him, her breath hot in his ear and her moans of delight sending him over the edge into ecstasy as she ground herself fiercely against him. Shuddering with the force of his release, his cock pulsing into her and his hands gripping her hips hard enough to bruise, Strike buried his face against her collarbone and gave himself over to the pleasure.

Robin rocked to a halt, her hands sliding to his shoulders, clinging to him, trembling, her lips against his temple pressing kisses into his skin, his hair. Strike wrapped his arms around her waist, his face in her neck, and just breathed her and let the satisfaction roll through him.

Long minutes passed while they held onto one another, breathing slowing and sweat cooling, until another lurch of the van drew them back towards reality. Grinning, Robin levered herself back on Strike’s lap a little, freeing her aching hips and causing him to slide out of her. She leaned forward and kissed him sweetly, slowly, sensuously, and Strike suddenly couldn’t bear another night locked away from her, away from her laugh and her hair and her lips and her body.

“I need to get out of prison,” he muttered against her mouth, and felt her smile softly against him.

“You do,” she murmured. “And come home. The office is too quiet without you.”

 _Home_. Home was Robin. The revelation, both new and startling and yet blindingly obvious and immutable, shocked him. He stared up at her, stunned, and she smiled again and kissed him again.

The van had pulled to a halt, and they could hear the sliding of more metal gates.

“Shit, we’re here,” Robin muttered, clambering off his lap and straightening her clothing. Still dazed, Strike followed suit, zipping himself back into his trousers, doing up his shirt, tucking it in. Robin picked up the dropped keys and moved back to the bench opposite as the van pulled forwards slowly, rumbling along and finally drawing to a standstill. The engine shuddered to a halt and silence fell.

“The handcuffs,” Robin hissed, and Strike grabbed them from the bench next to him. He clipped one wrist in and Robin leaned forward to attach the other, and they could hear Wardle clambering out of the cab and coming round to the back of the van, the murmur of voices.

Robin shrank back into her corner, hiding herself, and Strike could hear the jingle of keys, the scrape of a key being fitted to a lock.

“Robin—”

She looked across at him in the dim light, luminous, beautiful, perfect. “Yeah?”

Strike swallowed. This was not the time or the place, and Wardle was pulling at the door handle now—

“I miss you,” he murmured, and she grinned.

“I miss you, too,” she murmured back. “Not long now. You’ve got a crack team working for you, we’ll get you out.”

Wardle swung the door open and peered in. “Robin?” he said in a low voice.

“Yup.” She scrambled forward.

“Slip out here, in this door. Vanessa will take you round to the public entrance.”

Robin nodded, and with a last, sweet smile at Strike she was gone, stepping lightly and swiftly down out of the van, dropping the keys into Wardle’s hand, slipping straight in through a small side door. Wardle had parked as close to the side of the building as he could get.

“This way for you, Gooner.” Wardle stood back while Strike swung himself out into the central London air, filled with the sounds of traffic and voices. They were parked in a small yard at the back of the courts. Wardle took his arm again and led him along towards the next door, the entrance for prisoners being brought to appear in front of a judge or jury.

“Get what you needed?” he asked, and Strike glanced at him sideways, but there was no trace of his habitual teasing grin.

“Yeah, all caught up,” he replied. “Thanks for all your help on this.”

Wardle shrugged. “It’s mostly Robin and Hardacre, and a bit of Ilsa,” he said. “I’m just along for the ride.”

They reached the door and Wardle knocked on it sharply. The two men stood waiting, and a breeze ruffled past them, swirling a few leaves in the corner of the yard.

“One piece of advice, though,” Wardle added smoothly as the sound of keys jingled on the other side of the door in front of them.

“What’s that?”

“Try a different shade of lipstick. That one doesn’t suit you.” And there it was, the trademark Eric Wardle smirk as the door swung open. “After you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ages ago (it feels like) I read a fic over on SG1 about Sam and Jack doing it in the back of a limo, in dress uniform, with the privacy screen up, and I threw it at hobbeshalftail3469 and said, “How do I make this happen for Corm and Robin? How on earth can we get them in the back of a vehicle being driven, in smart dress (him Army) with limited time?” Taxi wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t figure out why they’d be in a limo with him in his uniform, and even a normal police car doesn’t have the privacy screen. 
> 
> The long, long, loooooong discussion about how this scenario could come about with any reasonable degree of plausibility gave us such a delicious back story, I decided to write the whole thing. So this fic, which is going to be the longest thing I have ever written, was born and exists entirely for these almost three thousand words. Deary, deary me 😂😂😂
> 
> I guess I’d better actually finish it now. The post-amble is likely longer than the preamble 😂😂


	19. The Bigger Picture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suppose they’d better actually start solving the case...

“Robin? Graham.”

“Hi,” Robin replied, setting her file aside and leaning back in her chair. Strike’s chair. It was amazing how easy it was to start to see this as her desk.

“Is this a good time?”

“As good as any,” Robin replied, glancing at her watch. “I’ve got a client in twenty minutes, I was just reviewing the file.”

“I won’t keep you,” Hardacre replied. “I haven’t got much to report, actually, just checking in.”

“Oh, okay.”

“No luck on the file, I can’t find it anywhere. But I have had a quiet word with someone I reckon I can trust in the IT department.”

“And?” Robin flipped open the file she had made for this case. Her notebook had been filling rapidly; she’d started an official file, hoping that its familiarity of layout and structure would help her thought processes. So far it contained all of her notes, copied up in date order but also cross-referenced with sheets outlining the timeline of events, the search for the file, the way the evidence fitted together, but not the photographs she’d taken of the sheets from the file that had lived for so long at the Herberts’. Those existed only on her mobile phone. She had labelled the file Cyprus, but privately she thought of it as the Strike case, a title which was more fitting but which she couldn’t quite bring herself to use out loud.

“Time stamp searches show the digital file was accessed at the time it was uploaded, obviously, then again quite a lot around the time Faulkner was convicted, which was no surprise, and then not until a month ago.”

Robin frowned down at her various timelines. “But you didn’t access it until last week?”

“No.”

“So someone else has been looking.”

“Yeah. And it could be anything. Could just be someone cross-referencing other drugs cases. Looking up Faulkner now he’s nearing release. That kind of thing.”

“Or it could be when the extra sheet was added.” Robin reached for her tea and, finding it cold, pulled a face at it.

“Yeah. And the bits that specifically exonerated Faulkner were taken out.”

“What bits?”

Hardacre sighed. “I can’t remember. I don’t have a photographic memory like your partner, and it was a lot of years ago. But there was definitely more concrete evidence he was innocent than there is now.”

“Right. Any luck on an IP address?”

“No. I think probably you’d need to dig deeper than the woman I spoke to was willing to go. I was trying to pretend I just wanted to know who accessed it so I could ask them if they’d accidentally forgotten to bring it back, but I’m not sure she believed me, and I had to drop it. And—” Hardacre broke off and sighed again.

“What?”

“I’ve been going over the main file on Faulkner from when he was convicted a couple of years ago. There are similarities.”

Robin sat up straighter. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly what I mean. It’s just a feeling. A phrase here and there. Similar methods of investigation. Odd gaps. I don’t know. Nothing I can put my finger on, but it’s... I don’t know,” he said again, frustrated.

“Cormoran thinks he was framed.”

“Does he now? That’s interesting.” Robin could hear the sudden piqued interest in the investigator’s voice. “Have you spoken to him?”

Robin was intensely glad they were speaking on the phone, knowing her cheeks were going red. “Yeah, I, er, managed a few minutes with him while he was on the way to his plea hearing.”

“Hang on, let me grab a pen.” She could hear Hardacre scrabbling among papers. “Go on.”

“Yeah, so he said at the time, in Cyprus, that Gough had falsified those other two bits, or made the first investigators do it. And after he was moved on, Cormoran said Chambers made him write up the fake interview.”

“And he did it?” Hardacre’s voice was disbelieving.

“And made him sign off on it. He was going to use it to trap him, if it came out. But it didn’t. He was hoping Chambers would give himself away.”

“Huh. I’m amazed he didn’t. I mean, we knew he was famous for his temper, but it was still impressive to see. I’ve never had a bollocking like it, before or since. The guy was puce and spitting.”

“Yeah, Cormoran’s thinking was that Chambers letting something slip plus the bits of evidence would be enough to build a case against him. When it wasn’t, he just took the evidence as insurance and you guys moved on. He said the right result had happened.”

There was a long pause. Robin could hear the scratch of Hardacre’s pen as she made her own notes too.

“I wonder why Oggy never told me.”

It was a rhetorical question. Robin shrugged, then remembered he couldn’t see her. “Don’t know. Keep you out of it?”

“Yeah. It’s still dodgy, messing with a file. We’re supposed to leave it as is, flag irregularities, let a higher power decide.”

“Which would have resulted in Faulkner going down at the time.”

“Hm. Probably.”

There was another pause.

“Is that evidence well hidden?”

“Yes. They’ll never find it even if they come looking.”

“Where is it?”

Robin hesitated a little. “Safe.”

Hardacre snorted. “Good. Seriously, though, Robin, they might. Be careful.”

“You too. Don’t dig around too much.”

“It’s my job to dig. If someone, Chambers or Gough or whoever, is framing people for the drugs thing, presumably they’re protecting the real culprits.”

“Yeah.”

Another pause.

“Right, Robin, I’d better get on.”

“Yeah, me too. Thanks, Graham. Keep in touch.”

“We’ll get him out. And Faulkner, if he’s innocent too.”

“Yeah.”

Goodbyes said, Robin ended the call and gazed at her notes, tapping her pen on the file.


	20. Struck

Strike was eating in the mess hall, shovelling food steadily into his mouth, when Faulkner sat down opposite him. The food was acceptable; bland, but plentiful. Today’s midday meal was a slightly tasteless shepherd’s pie with peas. It could have done with more onion and plenty more cheese, in Strike’s opinion, but a good dose of salt had given it a little life.

He grunted a greeting and went back to concentrating on his plate. They were surrounded, the seats filling up fast as the kitchen staff dolloped the food out swiftly and efficiently. There would be no talking here.

They ate in silence for a while, until Faulkner asked, low, “Got any more Benson & Hedges?”

Strike’s occasional supply from Robin was one of his few pleasures in here. The cigarettes on offer in the prison shop were cheap and rough on the throat. Several inmates had attempted to make his acquaintance once the gold packet had been spotted in his pocket, but Strike guarded his stocks jealously. For information, though, he was willing to be generous.

“Sure,” he replied. “Catch you later.”

Faulkner nodded and went back to his plate; finished, Strike picked his up and moved away. The afternoons were long and boring. Not planning to be here long enough to indulge in either, Strike had taken up no work or studies, instead contenting himself with reading his way through the meagre offerings of the prison library and working on his physical health. Running and basketball were beyond him, but he walked steady circuits of the yard most afternoons as long as the weather held, and did upper body work and gentle knee exercises in the gym when it didn’t. Faulkner, nearing the send of his sentence, was also at a loose end during the leisure times.

Strike had been going to head to the gym after he’d given his food a chance to settle. Instead, he went out to the yard and began to stroll, concentrating on walking evenly, on using his knee fully now that it was strengthening, trying not to limp which added pressure to his stump. He was already moving better, he could tell.

Presently Faulkner appeared. Strike kept walking, but the next time he passed the farthest bench, he stopped and sat to smoke. Strolling around the yard in the opposite direction, Faulkner eventually reached him, asked for a cigarette and sat down.

The two men sat, smoking, under the grey, cloudy sky, enjoying what breeze could make it down over the high prison walls.

“I assume Graham Hardacre is sniffing about, if you are?” Faulkner said presently.

Strike drew on his cigarette thoughtfully. “Hardy and I haven’t been partners since I left the Army,” he responded truthfully.

Faulkner snorted. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

Strike said nothing.

“It was beyond your pay grade then and it is now,” Faulkner muttered. “Don’t you think I tried? To work out what was going on, who knew what? And look where it got me.”

There was a long silence as the two men sat and smoked.

“Well, anyway,” Faulkner went on. “If Hardacre is with you, and he’s digging, they’ll be on to him. He just might not know it yet.”

He took another drag of his cigarette, inhaled, exhaled, hesitated. Appeared to make a decision.

“I’m pretty much out of it all these days, left to rot in here,” he said finally. “But I hear snippets. Has your partner got the evidence?”

Strike stiffened almost imperceptibly, willed himself to relax. “I told you, Hardy’s not my partner.”

“I’m talking about the girl, the redhead.”

Strike knew full well that Faulkner had meant Robin. Heard pounding, stalling for time, he said, “What do you mean?”

“Come off it, Strike. You know exactly what I mean. You’ll have kept stuff from back then for insurance, I know it and they know it, and they’ll be after it. Word on the grapevine is they reckon she has it.”

He ground his cigarette out under his boot. “These guys don’t fuck around,” he said, his voice still low and even. “I hope she’s safe.”

Strike stared at him. “Official Army business, and you think they’d stoop to that?”

Faulkner shrugged. “I’ve been in here two years, mate. And they had my girlfriend followed while I was on trial. I dumped her in the end, just to keep her out of it.”

Strike finished his cigarette and dropped it to the floor, covering it with his prosthetic foot, buying himself time to think. Faulkner turned to face him a little. “I’m just saying, be careful.”

“I will,” Strike replied. “Thank you. And...sorry.”

Without appearing to draw back at all, Strike twisted his upper body and swung his fist, felt it connect with Faulkner’s jaw, felt the give of flesh and the crack of his knuckles, the familiar bloom of pain.


	21. I’m not a bloody surgeon!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There is whump here, and blood, and needles.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Oggy!”

Jaw set against the pain, Strike glared. “Took you fucking long enough to get here.”

Nick glared back, his eyes raking across his friend as he pulled latex gloves on, hunting for any injuries less obvious than the swollen eye, bruised jaw, nose that looked as though it might be broken yet again. “They only rang me an hour ago, and the security in here is ridiculous even when they’ve demanded you attend urgently. I wasn’t allowed to bring anything in, they’d better have supplies.” He cast his eye over the drawers in cabinets lining the wall of the medical wing examining room he’d found Strike in.

“I knew they were holding out on me. They wanted to handle it internally, patch me up like they did him— Ow!”

Nick had braced his hands either side of Strike’s face, his thumbs gently probing his eye sockets and the bridge of his nose. “Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere!”

“I mean specifically. Here? Here?” Nick worked his way slowly around each eye, down the line of Strike’s jaw. Strike attempted to shake him off irritably.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not—”

“Nothing’s broken,” Strike said impatiently. “I’ve boxed, remember. I know what a broken nose or a cracked eye socket feels like. I’ve just been roughed up a bit, that’s all. Only my chiselled good looks are dented.”

Nick huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “Why am I here, then?”

“I need you to sort something for me. Outside. Oh, and—” looking slightly sheepish, Strike rolled a little, wincing at the pain, to show Nick the bloodstained side of his shirt “—this.”

Nick leaned over and pulled the shirt up, drawing a grunted expletive from his friend. “What’s—? Oggy, have you been _stabbed?_ ”

“Jesus, Nick, keep your bloody voice down!” Strike hissed. “I don’t want a fucking investigation, Faulkner would be in real trouble and he’s nearly out.”

“But he stabbed you?”

“I don’t fucking know. I don’t think it was him. It turned into a bit of a free-for-all before the wardens could get to us. Some guys’ll jump at any chance to twat a Redcap.”

Strike watched as Nick swung away and started going through the cabinets along the walls, opening drawers, closing them again, muttering to himself.

“I don’t think it was Faulkner,” he went on, “but it was all so fast. I’m pretty sure the guy who did it is the one who pinched my fags, though.”

Nick rolled his eyes, turning back with a large foil packet that he stripped open to reveal a tray of implements. He placed it on the table by the bed. “Then why hide it?”

Strike shrugged, and then winced. “I think they’d happily take any excuse to keep him in longer. I told them I’d hit him first. I, er, think I might have cracked a rib or two as well,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

Nick was peering more closely at the gash in his side. “Fucking hell, Oggy. I’m not a bloody surgeon!”

“Just patch me up,” Strike waved a dismissive hand. “I need you to do something far more important.”

“More important than this?” Nick was leaning over, squinting, probing gently at the wound, making Strike hiss a breath in.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’ll have to wait. How did the doctors here not spot this?”

“I didn’t let them look. Said the blood was from my nose and I was fine.”

“Hm.” Nick straightened up, looked at his friend’s face and then back at his bloody side. “Hold onto the edges of the bed there.”

“Why?” Strike moved his hands automatically to comply.

“Because this is going to hurt.” Nick slid his finger into the wound, gritting his teeth and ignoring his friend’s fierce grunt of pain, exploring swiftly and then withdrawing again. “Okay, you haven’t gone right through the muscle, and more importantly, not into the abdominal cavity.”

White-faced, beaded with sweat, Strike glared up at him, panting. “Christ, warn me, why don’t you?” He managed a sarcastic tone despite the hoarseness to his voice.

“I did,” Nick replied mildly. “Waiting would have made it worse. Ideally I’d have scanned you, but I didn't think that was an option under the circumstances. Let’s get you stitched up.”

Strike lay back against the bed, gripping the sides again to hide the way his hands were shaking. Nick cast him a brief look of sympathy.

“Sorry, mate. Worst is over. Saline’s going to sting when I clean it, but there’s a bit of local anaesthetic here for the actual stitches, if you don’t mind the needle.”

Strike grunted.

“Tell me why I’m really here, while I do this,” Nick suggested, pulling up a nearby stool and settling to the task at hand. “Think about something else. This’ll sting,” he added, squirting saline, swabbing the wound, wincing a little at his friend’s hiss of pain.

“I need you to get hold of Shanker,” Strike managed, ignoring the stinging.

“Why?” Nick picked up the syringe of anaesthetic. “Hold still, needle going in.” He worked his way around the wound, adding a little anaesthetic here and there to numb the area.

“I want him to watch Robin. He’ll know what to look for.”

Distracted, Nick looked up at him. “Watch Robin? What for?”

Strike hesitated. “I think this is bigger than she realises. I want her safe.”

“You think she’s not?”

“I don’t know. I want to be sure. But I don’t want to scare her, or make her feel patronised.”

Nick turned back to the tray, fiddling with the suture kit. “Okay. How do I get hold of him? Ring Lucy?”

“Christ, no. She doesn’t know about any of this.”

Nick paused again, staring at him. “She doesn’t know? Did she not see the news? Where does she think you are?”

Strike shrugged, looking a little shame-faced. “I don’t talk to her every week. I told Robin to tell her if she rings that I’m fine, and if she doesn’t know I’m in here - which I guess she doesn’t as she hasn’t rung yet - just to say I’m working a bunch of evenings and I broke my phone, and I’ll ring her back when I’m less busy. Or if she hears somehow and rings in a panic, to say it’s for a case and I’ll explain later.”

Nick shook his head, grinning. “Stitches going in now.”

Strike clenched his jaw. Even with the local anaesthetic, the stitching process tugged at the wound, sending darts of pain through him. “Anyway. Not Lucy. You’ll have to get my mobile.”

“And where’s that?”

“In my flat, bedside drawer. Key’s in my desk.”

Nick paused his work and looked at him. “And you want me to do this without Robin knowing?”

“You’ll think of something.”

Shaking his head again, Nick resumed stitching.

“Phone might need charging by now. The passcode’s 091– Ow! —084.”

“Sorry. Nearly done.”

“You got that?”

“Oggy, I have a head full of drugs and dosages, tissues, muscle groups, veins, procedures. I can remember six digits.”

“And—” Strike hesitated, uncertain how to articulate his fears. “If Robin says anything, if she feels unsafe—”

“We’ll move her in with us,” Nick replied.

Strike nodded. “Thanks, mate.”

“There, that’s done.” Nick sat back and checked over his handiwork. “Don’t go showing any actual surgeons, but it’ll do.”

Strike snorted.

“I’m going to clean the whole area now, stick a dressing on it. Keep that on a couple of days if you can, but I appreciate showering will be awkward. The stitches should dissolve on their own in a week or so.”

Strike lay back and let him work, relaxing now that the worst of the pain was over. It still hurt to breathe, but he’d dealt with cracked ribs before. He’d known that the stab wound posed the biggest risk to his remaining under cover, and now that was dealt with, he needed to know Robin was safe.

“What do you want me to tell Ilsa?” Nick asked, swabbing around the stitches.

Strike glanced at his friend. “Whatever you like. I’m not going to ask you to lie to your wife.”

“Whatever I tell her, she’ll tell Robin.”

Strike nodded ruefully. “Okay, yeah. Well, the secret to successful lying is to stay as close to the truth as possible. Say I got in a fight - it happens in prison - and I wanted a second opinion after the idiots in here patched me up. All true.”

Nick nodded.

“Maybe leave out the stabbing part. I will tell her, but I don’t want her worrying. She’ll see my face when she next visits.”

“Poor Robin,” Nick winked at him.

“Ha, ha. I bet I’m a picture, just like always.”

“You’re a picture of something.” Nick smoothed the dressing into place. “There. Keep it dry while it heals. I’m going to try and find you a shot of antibiotics, I really don’t want to think about what you were actually stabbed with. But watch for infection. Oozing, bad smell, feeling fevery. You’d know if it was going that way, and that, Oggy, is not something you can ignore.”

Strike nodded. “I know.”

Nick gazed at him levelly. “I mean it. An infection in a wound like this _must_ be dealt with, okay?”

Strike scowled. “Okay. Jeez.”

Nick rolled his eyes a little. He dumped the tray in a medical waste bin, stripped off his gloves and dropped them in too and started to go through the drawers again. “They must have basic antibiotics in a place like this,” he muttered as he searched. “Though I guess they might be locked away— Aha!” With a triumphant grin, he pulled a small vial from a drawer. “Amoxicillin, generic, it’ll do. You’re not allergic?”

Strike shook his head while Nick opened a syringe packet and calculated the dose. “Nope.”

“Good. Roll over on your side, pull your trousers down a bit.”

“Is there a rule saying it has to go in my arse, or do you just enjoy torturing me?” Strike complained as Nick jabbed him.

“Ideally it would be intravenously, but I’m not going to be here to monitor you, and it’d look a bit bloody obvious to put you on a drip, so this’ll have to do,” Nick retorted, dropping the needle into the bin too. “Right, let me find a stethoscope and listen to your lungs. Any breathlessness?”

“No.”

Strike lay and looked at the white plasterboard squares of the ceiling while Nick hunted for a stethoscope, and hoped he was doing the right thing. He wanted to send Robin to the Herberts, to Masham, to anywhere where she’d be safe, but he was pretty sure he couldn’t persuade her to go even if he wasn’t stuck in here. Having Shanker keep an eye on her was the next best thing he could think of. He sighed, and winced.

“Right.” Nick was back. “Open your shirt.”

Strike undid buttons and lay and submitted to Nick listening to his chest, wincing again as his ribs were probed and Nick muttered under his breath.

“Impossible to tell for sure without an x-ray, but I think you’re just bruised and maybe a couple are cracked. Nothing outright broken.” Nick set the stethoscope aside and cast an amused glance at his friend. “You’re pretty knocked about, what the hell kind of state is the other guy in?”

“Not as bad.”

Nick raised a cheeky eyebrow. “Not like you to lose a fight.”

“I didn’t lose!” Strike huffed. “I was trying not to hurt him. And he was angrier than I was. If he’s telling the truth, he’s been in here two years on false charges. And I hit him for no reason.”

“You think he is?” Nick set the stethoscope aside. “Innocent, I mean?”

Strike shrugged. “God knows. Hopefully Hardy is working on that.” He pulled himself painfully upright and began doing his shirt back up. Everything ached now, his whole body stiffening up. “Anyway, I needed to get roughed up enough to end up in here so I could see you.”

Nick glanced around. “Amazing they’ve left us alone this time.”

“After hours,” Strike replied. “Most have gone home. Took me hours of arguing to get them to call you. Had to say I’d wrenched my leg in the end.”

“Have you?”

“Nah.”

Nick shook his head, rubbing a hand across his face. “Just try and stay alive till we can get you out, hey?”

Strike gave a rueful chuckle, sliding off the bench to stand. Nick stepped back, watching him carefully, and Strike snorted and took a few steps. “Leg’s fine, see?”

Nick nodded, satisfied.

“Just sort Shanker for me, yeah?”

“I will do.”

“As soon as you can.”

“I will.” Nick nodded.

Strike paused. “Thanks, mate. Again.”

Nick grinned. “Any time. Let’s make it for a beer rather than for stitches next time, though.”

“You got it.” Strike grinned, and Nick shook his head a little, grinning back.

Nick went to stick his head out of the door, and the orderly at the desk nodded at him. “I’ll see you out, doctor.”

“Thanks.” Nick turned back, and he and Strike shook hands. “Take care, mate.”

“You too.”

And then Nick was gone, leaving Strike to wait for a warden to escort him back to his cell.


	22. Suspicions

Robin sat at her desk - Strike’s desk - and stared at the stapler. It sat innocently on the corner of the desk, just beyond the reach of her right hand, its jaws facing the window and its hinge end pointing into the room.

She opened the drawer next to her, just as she had a moment ago, took out the top file, looked at the one underneath, replaced them.

“Tea?” Hannah’s cheerful voice broke into her concentration.

“Ah, thank you,” Robin said fervently. “I could murder a cuppa.”

It was a long-standing joke between her and Strike, especially when they were actually investigating a serious crime, but it went straight over Hannah’s head. The assistant merely nodded and set the mug down, turned back towards the door. A fierce pang ran through Robin, a sudden longing for her burly partner, for their easy camaraderie, for his big, comforting presence.

“Hannah?”

The blonde woman swung back, her ever-ready smile on her face. “Yeah?”

“Um...” Robin hesitated. “Did you borrow the stapler?”

They both looked at the stapler on the corner of the desk.

“No.”

“I mean, you didn’t even come in and use it right there, and go back out again?”

“No, I’ve got one on my desk out there.”

Robin nodded. “And did you look through the drawers for anything?”

“No. Is everything all right?”

Robin pulled a face and stared around again. “Everything’s just...different. A bit.”

Hannah glanced around at the desk, at its usual ordered neatness.

“Are— Are you sure?”

Robin waved at the stapler. “Why is that sat like that? I remember using it yesterday, in my right hand, as I do, and setting it there. I’d have had to twist my hand right round to put it like that.”

“Maybe you knocked it?”

“Yeah, maybe...” Robin paused. “Was the door locked as usual this morning when you arrived?” She herself had had an early spin class with Redhead.

“Yeah. You’re worrying me now! Is everything okay?”

Robin laughed uncertainty. “Yeah, I think so. It’s probably just my imagination. It’s weird having everything different, Cormoran not here.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, thanks, Hannah.”

Hannah nodded and went back to the outer office. Robin sipped her tea and glared accusingly at the stapler.

...

At lunchtime, as soon as Hannah had left for the shops, Robin grabbed Strike’s keys from his desk drawer and trotted up to the flat. She prowled around, but she hadn’t spent as much concentrated time in this space as she had in their offices. She peered into his clothes drawers; everything was its usual ordered neatness. She rifled through a couple of newspapers on the coffee table, the top one neatly folded to the crossword. She ran her fingers along the edge of his kitchen counter, feeling uneasy. She checked in his bedside drawer, and his mobile was still sat there. She poked it and it lit up, complaining that it was almost out of battery.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had been here, in amongst their things, in the office and Strike’s flat.

She sat down on the edge of his bed with a sigh, then flopped back onto the pillows. It still smelled faintly of him, of cigarettes and his own unique Cormoran smell. Her mind drifted back to their last visit, a couple of days ago. For once, she had abandoned all idea of trying to pass and receive messages and just enjoyed spending some time with him. She’d blushed like a girl when he walked in, remembering their passionate previous encounter, going even redder when he’d greeted her with a wicked grin and a tiny wink, and then he’d tangled his fingers with hers on the table and she’d longed to melt into him. She just wanted to be able to touch him, to curl up against him and smell him and feel his arms around her.

And then the next evening the phone call had come from Nick, telling her not to be alarmed but that he’d just been summoned to the prison to assess injuries Strike had sustained in a fight, that there was no need to worry, but just to be prepared for a black eye and a slightly more squashed nose. Ilsa had come on the line and muttered darkly about what an idiot their mutual friend was, and told her to ring and check her next visit was still on. Robin hadn’t been able to face making the call yet.

She turned on her side, resting her cheek against his pillow, and gazed blankly at the wall.

Where was the missing file? Who had it? Was Faulkner truly a victim in all this too? Why was Strike getting into fights? And why was she so sure that she was being watched, that their things had been gone through? Was she just paranoid and jumpy, with everything that was going on?

Questions, questions and more questions.

Hannah would be back soon. She’d only gone to fetch sandwiches from the Tesco on the next street. With a sigh, Robin climbed off the bed. She locked up the flat and went back down to the inner office, dropped the keys back into the drawer, and opened up the laptop. She could at least attend to her other cases while she couldn’t do anything for Strike.

She clicked on her recent documents folder, searching for her latest notes for Redhead, and then stared at the date and time column, and glanced at her watch.

Heart hammering, she closed the folder and called up the Amazon website to place an order.


	23. Secret Mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look, more Nick 😂😍

“Hi. You must be Hannah.”

The young blonde looked up at him with a pleasant, professional smile. “I am. How can I help you, Mr...?”

“It’s Doctor, actually. Herbert. Nick Herbert.” Nick offered her his hand, and she stood and shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

“You, too. Ms Ellacott isn’t at her desk at the moment.”

“Ah, that’s a shame.” Nick knew perfectly well that Robin wasn’t here, having watched her leave from his vantage point in the cafe down the road. “Is it okay if I leave her a note?” He waved an arm towards her office.

“I can take a message. What case does it relate to?”

Nick gave her his best charming grin. “Oh, it’s not business, it’s personal. She’s friends with my wife, and I am under strict instructions to call in as I was passing and take her out for coffee. Apparently it’s rude to be in the area and not.”

Hannah hesitated. Her eyes flickered across him, taking in his easy smile, his wedding ring, the hospital pass he’d deliberately left on a lanyard around his neck, bearing the words “Dr N Herbert, consultant, gastroenterology” and the insignia of the major London hospital he worked at.

She relaxed a little and smiled. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” he replied, his eyes twinkling at her. “Just to be a complete pain in the arse, may I please borrow your pen?”

Her smile broadened and she handed him the one she was holding, a faint bloom of pink across her cheeks as Nick smiled warmly again. “Thank you.”

He strolled through to Robin’s office, pulling his pre-prepared note from his pocket as soon as he was out of sight. He set the note in front of Robin’s chair - a simple “sorry I missed you, was passing and thought we could have coffee and catch up” - and delved in the drawers for Strike’s keys.

It took him a minute to find the right drawer, and he pocketed the keys and leaned over the desk, imagining finishing writing the note, until he decided sufficient time had passed, and then he deliberately tucked Hannah’s pen into his pocket and went back out to the main office.

“All done,” he said cheerfully. “Thanks. Mind if I use your loo while I’m here? It’s a bit of a hike back to the hospital, and my meeting overran.”

Hannah looked up from typing. “Go ahead,” she replied, and Nick smiled again and went out onto the little landing.

He heard the typing resume, and instead of turning towards the little toilet in the hall, he hurried as quietly as he could up the steps to Strike’s flat. He kicked off his shoes as he unlocked the door, and crept in socked feet, hoping like hell there weren’t too many creaky floorboards, across to Strike’s bedroom.

He had to be fast. He pulled the bedside drawer open and there was Strike’s phone. _Please let it still have battery._ If he had to take the phone away to charge it, he’d have to do all this again, for some other spurious reason, to put it back.

He was in luck. Low battery, but charge enough. He swiftly keyed in the passcode, found the contacts list, scrolled down to Shanker’s. He pulled another piece of paper, brought along for this very purpose, from his pocket and scribbled the number quickly, then returned the phone to its place and crept back to the door. He locked up as quietly as he could, sliding his feet back into his shoes.

He could hear footsteps echoing on the metal stairs far below. _Shit_. Nick hovered, listening. Whoever it was was coming up. It was a woman’s tread, he could hear the click of heels on the central landing.

On up the steps came, and Nick waited, heart hammering, just out of sight. He had no logical reason to be up here. But then, whoever it was had no logical reason to continue up the final flight—

The footsteps paused on the landing below him, and he heard the door to the office of Strike & Ellacott open. Relieved, he listened as Robin (what was she doing back?) greeted Hannah and closed the door behind her, and then he hurried back down as quietly as he could. He dashed across to the small toilet and flushed it, ran the tap as though to wash his hands, and moved back to the office door. Taking a steadying breath, he knocked and opened it.

“I’m so sorry, Hannah, I nearly walked off with your pen— Robin! I thought you were out.”

“Nick, hi.” Robin smiled a greeting and accepted a kiss on her cheek, squeezing his arm warmly, causing a stab of guilt to run through him at his own subterfuge. “I was, but I realised I’d accidentally grabbed my gym bag and not my swim bag. Hard to keep up with my target’s busy fitness schedule. What are you doing here?”

“I had a meeting down the road, and I thought you might have time for coffee.”

Robin glanced at her watch. “I suppose I don’t need to actually do the class, just check she goes,” she mused. “Yeah, go on, then, if it’s quick.”

Strike’s keys were still in his pocket.

“I left you a note,” Nick said. “I’ll just go grab it, you don’t need it now.”

To his relief, Robin nodded and turned back to Hannah to finish discussing an earlier phone call; it was the work of a moment to grab the note from Robin’s desk and drop the keys back into the right drawer. He handed her the note as he came back out, and Hannah her pen.

“—I’ll ring her back and give her the rates,” Hannah was saying. “Thanks.” She flashed Nick a smile as she took her pen back.

“Thank you,” Robin said. She turned to Nick. “Right. Coffee?”

“Let’s go,” he agreed. “Nice to meet you, Hannah.”

“You, too,” she replied, and Nick held the door for Robin, his jumping heart finally settling, his mission accomplished. He followed her down the metal stairs back to street level, Shanker’s phone number in his pocket.

Nick noticed the way Robin looked all around as they stepped out of the door onto Denmark Street, and wondered if the business was still being doorstepped by the press. But there was no sign of any unwanted attention as they set off down the road.

“You seen Oggy?” he asked as they strolled.

“No, I rang this morning and tried to make an appointment, and I can’t. They won’t let me.”

“Won’t let you?”

Robin pulled a face. “He’s not allowed social visits for a week, punishment for fighting. They said he’s confined to his cell in the afternoons.”

“Oh, that sounds rough.”

“Yeah. I wish I could see him. You said he looked pretty bad. What on earth was he thinking?”

“It was mostly superficial,” Nick replied, holding the door of the cafe to allow Robin to precede him in. They found a table near the window and sat. “And I don’t think he was thinking, just defending himself.”

“What from?”

Nick shrugged. “He said some guys will jump at any chance to take a swing at the military police.”

“But he isn’t any more!”

“No, nor is Faulkner, or he won’t be when he gets out. But I guess it’s a case of once a Redcap...”

“Yeah, I guess.” Robin sighed and picked up the menu, reading it idly. “What are you having? Have you had lunch?”

“No, actually.” Nick was relieved to change the subject. He had hated lying to Ilsa, and he hated lying to Robin almost as much.

The waitress approached, and they ordered sandwiches and coffees. As soon as she had gone again, Robin was back on the subject.

“What did Ilsa say?”

“She’s pretty pissed off with him. She’s going to see him tomorrow, he’ll probably get a telling-off from her too.”

Robin laughed. “I bet.”

“Yeah. It doesn’t help your chances on proving he’s an innocent bystander in all this if he’s seen to be getting into fights. They could pin that on him instead.”

“Exactly.”

Robin hesitated, staring out of the window, and then cast her eyes to Nick. “But he’s all right?”

Nick pushed thoughts of stitches and antibiotics from his mind. “Yeah, I think so.”

Robin sighed. “It’s not like him, getting into that kind of trouble.”

Nick put his head on one side. “Well—”

Robin looked at him sharply.

Nick held his hands up. “He’s mellowed in recent years, I’ll give him that. And he never went looking for a fight. But he’s never backed down from one, either. We don’t know the full story,” he improvised.

“I suppose.”

“How’s his case?”

Robin huffed a frustrated sigh. “Graham’s still trying to get proof of whether it was Gough or Chambers who checked out - or stole - the file, and he’s trying to get an IP address for the alteration like Spanner suggested. Gough is around and about in London apparently, and he’s going to let me know an address for him and for Chambers. So we just have to wait. I guess we could start watching these guys, but what good would it do? And I’m too well known as Cormoran’s partner to be seen anywhere near them or try to infiltrate or whatever.”

Nick nodded. “So you’re kind of stalled?”

“For now, unless Cormoran gets us new information or Graham comes up with something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Starting to panic a bit, posting is catching up to what I have written. Must finish before Troubled Blood!


	24. Stranger in the Dark

Three nights later, Robin was walking home, later than usual after an evening yoga class with Redhead, when she became sure she was being followed. Her hand slid into her bag and closed around the canister she carried everywhere with her now, and her steps slowed.

Her feelings of unease had increased gradually over recent days. Nothing she could put her finger on, but a prickle of the senses, a certainty she was being watched. Several times she’d found herself faking a sudden change of direction, turning back on herself or darting down a new street, stopping abruptly to pretend to check her phone, scanning the crowds as though looking for a mark, to see if anyone ducked into a doorway. She’d spotted nothing. Whoever was following her was good at it. But she was sure she wasn’t imagining it.

Now, alone at night and with a frisson of fear running down her spine, she found herself suddenly angry. Here she was again, fearing for her safety simply because she was a woman, having to carry rape alarms and avoid certain streets and think constantly about her own security, while the men she passed strolled along, oblivious, headphones in their ears, tapping on their phones, blissfully unaware of their own privilege in being able to just go places without having to think about whether they might be accosted.

She sped up suddenly, rounded a corner in the wrong direction, away from her flat, and ducked into a doorway. Sure enough, she could hear the quickening of trainered feet, and a figure came briskly round the corner and passed her, surprisingly slim in a hooded jumper with the hood pulled well forward over his head. Pressed back into her doorway, she didn’t get a look at his face. He went past, padding quietly, and Robin slipped out of her hiding place and went back the other way, along the street towards her front door.

She’d only gone ten yards before she realised the figure was behind her again, and her door was close but she wasn’t going to give away where she lived, though she supposed her stalker probably knew if they’d been following her for some days.

Afterwards she wasn’t sure what made her act on such impulse - perhaps having seen the man and how slight he seemed - but she suddenly lost her patience with being made to feel like a victim. _Fuck you_ , she thought, and swung back to face her pursuer, sweeping the canister from her bag in one smooth movement and advancing, spraying it directly up into the hood of the figure hurrying after her so fast, he’d clearly got closer than he intended.

There was a howl of pain; the man swung away, hands to his eyes, and Robin saw her chance. The nights she’d stayed at Vanessa’s surged into her mind. Her policewoman friend had taught her some tricks that week after Robin and Matthew had first split up, to try to give her some renewed confidence, chief among which had been tips Vanessa, as a smaller woman, had learned in how to overpower someone bigger. This guy was small, and Robin was taller than Vanessa; buoyed by a confidence stemming from rage, she hooked a foot round his ankle, tripping him, and followed him down with a knee in the small of his back and a hand on his head pushing it down onto the pavement.

He barely resisted. With a shout and a thud as his head knocked against the pavement, his face screwed up and his eyes streaming, her would-be assailant suddenly managed to form words and said the one thing that would stop her in her tracks as she knelt on him, one knee pinning his back and the other his thighs, one hand on his head and the other holding her spray to his face—

“Robin!!”

Robin froze, startled. Then she yanked the hood away from the shaved head, spotted a flash of gold tooth in the pained grimace.

It was Shanker.

...

“Fuck— ow! Fuckin’ hell, Rob!”

“Hold still, and open your eyes,” Robin said grimly, holding Shanker’s head over the side of her bath. The cold tap was running, and she was trying to pour water from a small jug across his eyes, with little success.

“Was that pepper spray? Fuckin’ bitch— Sorry, Robin, I din’t mean it—fuck—”

“Open. Your. Eyes.” Robin ordered, and he did so reluctantly, allowing her to run water through them, blinking and spluttering.

“Pepper spray is illegal, ya know!”

Robin snorted. “Of all the times for you to start worrying about the law,” she retorted, and he gave a reluctant half-grin, half-grimace.

“And no, it wasn’t pepper spray. It’s a totally legal substitute I found on the internet.”

Silence fell, punctuated only by running water and quietly muffled curses, until Robin judged that ten minutes or so had passed and relinquished her grip. She switched off the tap and knelt back and passed Shanker a towel, which he pressed to his red face and still-streaming eyes. “What the fuck _is_ that stuff?”

“Useful,” Robin replied. “And at least now I know it works.” She sat back and looked at him, quite comical where he was still covered in the red dye, smeared on his face and hands. “I’m sorry, Shanker.”

Shanker grumbled into the towel, his eyes still watering so hard he could barely see. Robin leaned back against the wall and looked at him.

“Can I get you a cup of tea?”

He grunted into the towel. “Got a beer?”

Robin grinned. “Probably.”

She left him sat on her bathroom floor and went to look in the fridge. Two Doom Bar lay neatly on the shelf. Robin hesitated. Would Shanker know they were Strike’s brand? He might well do. To be on the safe side, she grabbed the can of lager Nick had left behind after she’d last hosted curry night, and turned around. She nearly dropped the can with a shriek as she discovered Shanker standing right behind her.

“God, you’re quiet.”

He grinned his toothy grin. His eyes were looking less red, though it was hard to tell with the dye still across his face. She could see he’d made an attempt to scrub his skin free of it, and wondered what state her towel was in.

“Not quiet enough, I guess.”

“I really am sorry,” Robin said, passing him the beer. “But I knew I was being followed.” She watched thoughtfully as he snapped open the ring pull and took a swig. “Have you been in the office?”

Shanker scowled. “No. Why would I?”

Robin shook her head, turning away to the kitchenette to pour herself a small glass of wine. “Someone has, I’m sure of it.”

She turned back, and Shanker had lit a cigarette to go with his beer. Rolling her eyes a little, Robin found a saucer for him to use as an ashtray and set it on the counter. “You can smoke in my flat on one condition.”

“Wha’s that?”

“You talk. Why were you following me?”

Shanker shifted uncomfortably, swigging his beer again to stall for time.

“Shanker?”

“Bunsen asked me to, din’t he?”

Robin blinked. “Cormoran asked—? How?”

“Sent a message. Don’t matter how.”

Robin opened her mouth to pursue that line of questioning, then changed tack. Shanker was right, it didn’t matter how. “Okay, why?”

Shanker shifted a little again. “I guess ’e thinks you might be in danger. ’E asked me to keep you safe.”

Robin bristled. “I can look after myself.”

“Yeah, ’e knew you’d say that. That’s why I had to do it quiet, like.”

Rolling her eyes a little, Robin sipped her wine, thinking, while Shanker smoked and periodically wiped his own eyes on his sleeve. They were still red-rimmed.

“Someone is following me, though, and not just you,” she mused. “They’re after the evidence. They’ve been in the office, and I think in Cormoran’s flat.” She glanced around her kitchen/living room uneasily. “I don’t feel like they’ve been here, but—”

Shanker shrugged and stubbed his cigarette out on the saucer. “’E also said you’re to go stay at Nick and Ilsa’s if you’re not safe.”

Robin sighed. She didn’t want to vacate, to give whoever it was the satisfaction of thinking she was afraid. But the thought of the Herberts’ spare room was suddenly very tempting. “I’ll think about it.”

Shanker set his empty can on the counter. “Well, you’re all right tonight. I’m about.”

Robin looked at him, hesitated. “Do you want to...sleep on the sofa?”

Shanker grinned toothily, reminding Robin suddenly that he was actually a dangerous person when he wanted to be. “Where’s the fun in that? Can’t rough ’em up in ’ere.” He turned towards the door, clicking his fingers. “Nah, I’ll ’ang out outside, see what I can work out.”

“Okay,” Robin followed him to the door.

“Keep this chain on, yeah?”

“I will do. Thank you, Shanker. And...sorry again, for spraying you and—” Beneath the red dye, she could see a slowly swelling red lump where she’d knocked the side of his head into the pavement.

He shrugged off the implication that she had got the better of him. “Din’t wanna ’urt you.” He hesitated fractionally and glanced sideways at her as he opened the door. “Don’t tell Bunsen, though, yeah?”

Robin chuckled. She didn’t suppose being overpowered by a woman would do Shanker’s street cred much good. “I won’t.”

He slipped out of the door, silent on trainered feet. “Night.”

Robin watched him go fondly. “Good night, Shanker.”

He flashed her a grin over his shoulder, a glint of gold tooth, and was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter brought to you by the plot hole that I’m pretty sure you can’t get a pepper spray like thing in the UK, only the dye that won’t wash off and therefore makes the attacker easier to identify. But maybe that would sting in your eyes, right?


	25. Mending Fences

Strike sat gingerly on the far bench in the yard, aware of almost every eye in the place on him, and lit up one of the cheap cigarettes from the prison shop. They were horrible, but nicotine was nicotine, and he’d been on severe rations, locked in his cell every afternoon. He wondered if Faulkner had been locked down, too.

He drew on the cigarette gratefully, and waited to stop being the centre of attention.

His left eye was still ringed with green and yellow, but the lump on the bridge of his nose was receding. Hidden beneath his loose khaki T-shirt, his stab wound was healing nicely. He’d managed to keep the bandage on for almost three days, with a bit of trickery over dressing, and wrapping himself in a towel in the showers. It helped that everyone was giving him a very wide berth. The stitches had all but vanished, and all that was left was an angry red line. It would fade to silver soon enough. The ache in the healing muscle and his creaking ribs was a steady, low-grade torment, but he was no stranger to pain at the best of times. He was stiff from being confined to his cell and only being able to sleep on one side or his back.

He wondered if they would move Walker back in with him now he was out of confinement.

The bench dipped a little as Faulkner sat down next to him. Carefully hiding his astonishment, Strike offered the other man a cigarette. All around the yard, other prisoners had stopped pretending not to look and were openly watching the two of them. A couple of wardens strolled slowly in their direction.

“Sorry,” Strike murmured, passing Faulkner his matches.

Faulkner grunted. “You said that at the time. Again, fuck you.”

Against his will, Strike snorted a laugh, and winced at the pain in his ribs. Faulkner huffed a small breath.

“Thing is,” he went on conversationally, in a low tone that wouldn’t carry to the slowly approaching wardens, “you barely touched me after that initial thump. Either you’ve forgotten everything you learned boxing, or you wanted _me_ to hurt _you_. What was that about?”

“Complicated,” Strike grunted, finishing his cigarette and, despite the bitter taste it had left in his mouth, lighting another.

“Did Evans stab you? Rumour is he got hold of a spare razor blade, and you had a heck of a lot of blood on you for one leaky nose.”

Strike shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

“He was openly smoking your B&H next day.”

“Cunt.”

“Yup.”

Faulkner smoked and watched the wardens, who strolled on by, happy to leave them be as long as they were mending their fences.

“So you wanted to be in the medical wing. Got someone in there?”

Not for the first time, Strike wished he knew whether he could trust this man or not.

There was a long silence.

“Okay,” Faulkner muttered. “We have no reason to trust each other except that we both used to be Redcaps. But my guess is you’re in here on some trumped-up charge, trying to get info out out me. For all I know, you could be working for them. But I don't think you are.”

He paused, and pulled his own cigarettes from his pocket and lit one from the end of his current one which he then dropped onto the floor to grind under his boot. “And if you’re not, then there’s a good chance you’ll end up like me, stuck in here for a couple of years for something you didn’t do, and then thrown out with your career over.”

Strike said nothing. He knew what his future looked like if his team didn’t crack this case.

“Thing is, though, your agency has a reputation for solving unsolvable cases. And I’ll bet money Hardy’s around too. So you’ve got a better chance than I did.”

Strike’s gaze slid sideways. Faulkner’s jaw bloomed the same green and yellow as Strike’s eye. “What do you think is going on?”

Faulkner hesitated, then ploughed on with the air of a man who has nothing left to lose.

“It’s Chambers. I was sure of it then and I still am. Just couldn’t prove it.”

“You really think it goes that high?”

“Yeah. I worked indirectly for him, being sent round the place trying to sort out these drug rings. Looking back, I was sent to the dodgiest ones, the hardest to pin down. Key bits and pieces went missing, got lost. And somehow after the last one, it ended up looking like I’d facilitated all of them, not just investigated them.”

Faulkner stopped and drew on his cigarette again. “My guess is, you were sent in here in all innocence to see what I had planned next, but I’d bet money Chambers engineered the idea to get you in here and linked to me, and bring you down too.”

“But why?”

“Come off it, Strike. Because he’s hiding the fact that he’s the one making sure the drugs do the rounds. He’ll have carried on, and I was in here. He’ll have a new scapegoat he doesn’t want us to find. Plus you royally fucked him off in Cyprus.”

Strike blinked. The thought had occurred to him, but he couldn’t believe that an officer as senior as Chambers would be involved in something so idiotic. “Why would he risk it?”

“Money. It’s always money,” Faulkner replied. “He’ll have debts, or mistresses, or his own coke habit or something. Or just plain greed. You know how it goes.”

Strike knew. He’d investigated many such cases, albeit usually at a much lower level.

“So what would you do?”

Faulkner stubbed out his second cigarette and stood. “Work out what he’s hiding and where he’s hiding it,” he replied, and walked off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m aware this has slowed down; apologies for that and for this short chapter. I’m almost caught up to where I had written to, but I am determined to get finished ASAP. Once I have it all actually written, I’ll be able to post faster - it will be finished before Troubled Blood, I am quite determined!


	26. A House Guest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday was awfully short, so have another...

Ilsa opened her front door and stared in surprise at Robin and Wardle.

“Have we got a meeting? Did I forget?”

Robin shook her head, and Ilsa suddenly noticed her pale cheeks, the small suitcase by her side. “Can I stay a couple of days, please?”

Wardle looked grim. “You should stay until this is over,” he told her.

“Of course, come in.” Ilsa ushered the two of them through to the kitchen. Nick, leaning on the breakfast bar flicking through the iPad, looked up in surprise. “What’s going on?”

“My flat’s been broken into,” Robin replied, feeling rather shaky now that the initial shock was wearing off. She’d arrived home from work to find her front door ajar and her little home absolutely ransacked. This had been no careful search like she secretly suspected the office and Strike’s flat had been subjected to. Her cupboards had been emptied, her drawers upended, her coffee table overturned. It had been done with violence. This had been a warning.

With shaking hands she’d phoned Wardle; he’d arrived within ten minutes, sirens wailing, ordered her to pack a few belongings and brought her straight here. She had felt quite sick, picking through her strewn things in gloves the policeman had given her, not allowed to touch drawers or door handles that would now be dusted for prints. More strangers in her home, looking at her knickers thrown across the floor, her spare birth control pills in the bathroom cabinet, her bedside drawer—

“Shit,” Nick said quietly.

Wardle nodded grimly. “I don’t want you going back there,” he said firmly. “And I’ll post a plain clothes officer to watch Denmark Street.”

Robin nodded resignedly. There was a pause.

“Tea.” Nick moved to the kettle to put it on.

“No chance this was just random, then?” Ilsa asked hopefully, taking Robin’s suitcase and setting it by the wall, giving her friend’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

Robin sighed a shaky sigh. It was time to come clean. “I’m pretty sure the office has been gone through, very carefully,” she admitted. “Stuff was just...different. And someone’s been in Cormoran’s flat, I went up to check.”

Nick turned back from the kettle. “Er, that was me,” he said. “Sorry.”

The other three stared at him.

Ilsa recovered first. “Why were you in Corm’s flat?”

“Checking his mobile for Shanker’s number. He asked me to get him to keep an eye on you.”

“ _That’s_ why Shanker was following me!” Robin sat down at the dining table, her legs wobbly.She ran her hands over her tired face. “Was that when you came round for coffee?”

The kettle boiled, and Nick filled the teapot. “Yeah,” he replied over his shoulder. “Sorry, Robin. Oggy didn’t want you to know. He had a hunch that you weren’t safe.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Wardle muttered. Robin cast him a sideways glance.

“Well,” he said, scowling. “If you needed protecting, he should have got us to do it. And where was this Shanker when your flat was getting done over?”

Robin shrugged. “I think his brief was to watch me, not the flat. I guess he was either outside the office, or maybe asleep? I got the impression he was lurking around overnight, keeping an eye out.” She had slept better, knowing Shanker was watching over her.

She turned to Nick. “But anyway, it wasn’t you being around that I’d sensed. The office and the flat were gone through before you came for coffee, Nick. I’d already been up and checked, the day before.”

“We need to call a halt,” Wardle said suddenly. “This is getting dangerous.”

“No,” Robin said at once, forcefully. “I’m safe here. And besides, Eric, we can’t stop. As things stand now, Cormoran could be convicted. We have to get to the end of this.”

“They were after the file,” Ilsa said suddenly. “They want that evidence, the faked pieces on Faulkner and the original document Corm wrote, for the paper file. It’ll prove they’re both guilty.”

Robin nodded. “I figured.”

“Where are they?”

“Safe,” Robin replied.

Wardle raised a sardonic eyebrow at her. “How safe?”

“Not even in London any more safe,” Robin said. “I sent them to Masham.”

Ilsa snorted. “Clever.”

“Yeah, in a stamped self-addressed envelope, so Mum and Dad don’t know what they are,” Robin added. “When we need them back, I’ll get them to stick it in a postbox.”

Wardle ran a hand across his face. “Key evidence, entrusted to Royal Mail...” he muttered.

“I sent it recorded delivery,” Robin retorted.

“Right,” Ilsa said, sitting down too. “You’ll stay here for the time being, that’s decided.”

“Thank you, Ilsa,” Robin replied. “But how long is this going to go on for?”

Ilsa shook her head. “I don’t know. We need Graham to start to move things along a bit. But without finding that file, or working out who took it—”

Nick carried two mugs of tea across to the table and went back for two more. Ilsa passed one to Robin and one to Wardle, who sat down as well.

“Thanks,” Robin said absently. “I’ve been vaguely wondering about keeping an eye on Gough and Chambers, if Graham can let us know where they live. I assume they’d both recognise me, but we’ve got Sam and Andy.”

“What good would that do?” Ilsa asked.

Robin shrugged. “I have no idea. But if they were meeting each other... Or we could find out who they are meeting...”

There was a pause. Robin sipped her tea.

Slowly, Wardle said, “I could get addresses for you.”

Ilsa looked at him sharply. “Not legally.”

Wardle snorted. “Well, I can _get_ them legally. I just can’t tell a civilian investigation legally. But probably nor can Hardacre.”

“True,” Robin mused. “But he is kind of part of the investigation.”

“Ouch,” Wardle retorted drily.

Robin grinned. “You know what I mean. This is in some respects official Army business. More than it is police business.”

Ilsa sighed and stared at her tea. “What do we need?” she wondered aloud.

“How do you mean?” Robin asked.

“What do we need, to solve the case?”

“Well, all we need at the moment is to prove Cormoran is innocent and get him out,” Robin said. “But you know that wouldn’t be enough for him. He went in on the brief of finding out what Faulkner was involved in and breaking up the drugs ring. If it’s true Faulkner is just a pawn too, then he’ll still want to find out what’s really going on, exonerate Faulkner and get justice for the real culprits.”

“But that side of it is for the Army to deal with, surely?” Ilsa said. “That’s an internal matter, for them to sort out in house.”

Wardle snorted. “They’ve done a pretty shit job of it so far.”

“True.”

“It’s all linked,” Robin said slowly. “I’m sure of it. The real drugs ring, Faulkner’s innocence or lack of it, Corm being framed - I reckon even the reason he’s in there in the first place. This can’t be a series of coincidences.”

“I agree,” Wardle said. “Something is very fishy, and I’m guessing it’s much higher up.”

Robin hesitated, but she wasn’t going to get another chance without Hardacre present. “Do you think Graham’s in on it?” she asked quietly, finally putting a voice to a fear that had nagged at her since the start.

There was a long pause. “Why?” Ilsa asked.

“Well— Why is Cormoran in there in the first place? It was Graham who convinced him to do it.”

Nick leaned back on his chair. “I think Hardy’s being straight with us,” he said. “Oggy worked with him for years, and they’ve kept in touch. He trusts him.”

“I know.” Robin sighed. “And I feel bad for even thinking it. But like you guys said ages ago—” she waved her mug vaguely at Ilsa and Wardle “—we can’t reject an idea just because we don’t like it.”

“True,” Wardle replied. “But I think this goes higher even than him, over his head too.”

“And the higher it is, the more watertight our evidence needs to be, and the more careful we need to be,” Ilsa mused.

“Are we safe?” Nick asked Wardle quietly. “I mean, are Ilsa and Robin safe? They know Ilsa is Oggy’s lawyer and they can presumably look up our address.”

Wardle swigged his tea. “As safe as you can be, I think,” he said. “They knew to do over Robin’s flat when she was out, my guess is they’re just trying to scare you off a bit. Maybe hope that you’ll just get Strike out and drop the rest of the case.”

“They don’t know him very well, then,” Robin muttered.

Wardle put his mug down. “They know enough to try to get at him through you,” he replied quietly. “Thanks for the tea, Nick. I’d best get back, see how forensics are getting on.” He stood, and turned to Robin. “I’ll get your keys back to you in a couple of days, and you’ll be able to pick up some more stuff. But don’t go alone.”

“I’ll take her,” Nick said, standing too to see Wardle out.

The policeman nodded. “See you all soon.”

The men moved down the hall towards the front door, and Robin and Ilsa looked at one another.

“You okay?” Ilsa asked quietly.

“No,” Robin replied, her voice low too. “I’m angry now. I accept I have to move out for my own safety, but fuck them.” She ignored Ilsa’s slight eyebrow raise at her expletive. “Army or no Army, I’ve had enough. Let’s just nail the bastards and get Cormoran out.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Ilsa replied, and the women clinked their mugs together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now the longest thing I have ever written, and we have ten chapters to go! 🎉


	27. Tightening the Net

“I watched this film on the telly the other night,” Strike said conversationally, his fingers tangled with Robin’s across the visiting room table. His thumb was idly stroking the inside of her wrist, and Robin was finding it very distracting.

“Oh, yeah?” she managed, ignoring the heat fluttering through her. “What was it about?”

“One of those spy things,” he replied, watching her carefully. “About a guy called Frank.”

Frank was their code name for Faulkner. Robin sat up a little straighter. “Was it good?”

“It was interesting. All about this guy who’d been framed.”

“Yeah?”

Strike was watching her carefully, willing her to understand. “Yeah, turns out he’d been framed for more stuff than anyone realised. Historical stuff. It was one of those tech thrillers, the answers were in digital records and traces.”

Robin nodded.

“And he reckoned he knew who did it, but he couldn’t prove it. Tense stuff.”

“Who did he think it was?”

Strike hesitated. They didn’t have a codename for Chambers. It hadn’t occurred to them before he started this case that they’d need one.

“Someone from his past,” he replied eventually. His hand moved gently in hers, and Robin could feel his finger curl across her palm, gently and repeatedly tracing the letter C.

“Someone...high up?” she hazarded, and Strike nodded.

Robin nodded too. They were on the same page. “Sounds interesting.”

Strike shrugged. “Yeah. I was thinking as I watched, it’s the sort of film George would like.”

“I’ll tell him about it.”

Strike nodded. Business concluded, he smiled softly at her. “How’s work?”

“Yeah, same old. Redhead started a new aquarobics class, so that’s fun.”

Strike grinned. “You have to exercise and swim?”

“I do. That’s got to count as two lots of exercise at once, right?” Robin laughed a little. “At least watching Redhead is good for my figure.”

His eyes darkened a little. “Absolutely nothing wrong with your figure.”

Robin smiled, tightening her fingers on his briefly. “Glad you think so. I’m never going to be a stick insect, no matter how hard I try, but it’s nice to be fitter.”

“Stick insect wouldn’t suit you. You’re sexy how you are.”

Cheeks pink, Robin cast her eyes about. “There are other people in here, you know. Rather a lot of them.”

Strike shrugged. “So? I’m sure they’ve all worked out by now that we’re a couple.”

Robin grinned, thinking of Hardacre’s eyes on the inside who hadn’t believed they weren’t. It was fun keeping everyone guessing. She hadn’t worked out who it was who was keeping an eye on them yet, but it didn’t matter. Being able to be open about being with her partner, being able to hold his hand in a public setting, was delicious.

A bell sounded and she sighed. Visiting time was over, and she had a call scheduled with Hardacre later. He’d taken to ringing her from home rather than work, which she felt was probably a reasonable precaution.

She gave Strike’s hand another squeeze. “Not long now, I hope,” she told him. “Ilsa is on the case. We’ll have you out.”

He squeezed her back, hard, making her fingers tingle. “Stay safe.”

Robin hesitated, then grinned. “I am safe. I have a guard dog now.”

Startled, he gazed at her, and a flush crept across his cheekbones. Robin chuckled.

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

Around them, everyone was standing, scraping chairs, voices briefly louder.

“Sorry,” Strike muttered. “I just thought—”

Robin smiled softly as they both stood too. Just like every time, she wished she could kiss him goodbye. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “I might have, er, accosted him before I realised who he was.”

Strike laughed. “Ouch.”

Robin grinned. “I’ll see you soon, yeah? Hopefully on the outside at some point.”

“Yeah.” And with a last gentle press of his fingers on hers, he was gone, following the other prisoners back through their door at one end of the long room while Robin joined the queue of visitors on their way back to the lockers to retrieve bags and coats.

...

Sat on the Herberts’ patio enjoying the evening sunshine, Robin sipped her ginger ale and idly stroked Ricky, who was curled up on the chair next to her. It was a moment of quiet. Nick was working a late shift and Ilsa wasn’t home yet either, forced to at least show her face for politeness’ sake at a works drinks.

The house phone rang and Robin set her glass down and hauled herself up from her comfy spot. Ricky eyed her as she abandoned him and went inside to peer at the handset. It was a random mobile number, obviously not someone Nick and Ilsa knew because the name hadn’t come up.

She hesitated, then picked it up. “Hello?”

“Ilsa? Or is that Robin?” It was Hardacre.

“Graham, hi. It’s Robin.”

“Robin, great. Listen, can you write this number down? It’s new.”

“Yeah, sure.” Robin pulled open the Herberts’ “random items” kitchen drawer, the one that every kitchen contained, that held mobile phone chargers, batteries, screws, paperclips, spare keys. She scrabbled about and found a pen and a Post-It note. “Go ahead.”

Hardacre read her the numbers out and Robin copied them down.

“Why didn’t you ring my mobile?” she asked.

Hardacre sighed. “This is a burner phone,” he said, sounding reluctant. “If Oggy’s right, and this goes higher than we thought—”

Robin nodded. Hardacre knew that she was living here now, that her flat had been broken into. It was entirely possible their phones were being listened to. “I’ll get one too.”

“Yeah. I think this is probably safe for now, they can’t have worked out where you are yet.”

“I’m pretty sure no one has followed me here,” Robin agreed. “Although, if they can trace my phone...”

“There’s only so much we can do,” Hardacre replied. “Anyway, the reason for this is, I’m going to give you Chambers and Gough’s addresses.”

“Okay.”

“Gough is actually based up in Winchester, not London like I thought, but Chambers is in London, would you believe.”

“I would believe,” Robin replied. “Want us to watch him?”

“No. I’ll try and get some sort of official warrant,” Hardacre replied. “There’s Army protocol about this sort of stuff. I’m still working out who I can trust, it’s delicate trying to ask about without arousing any suspicions or gossip.”

“Okay,” Robin replied. “Any other news?”

“No. You?”

“I saw Cormoran today. He’s totally sure now that Faulkner is innocent of everything, even the later busts, and has been set up. He said the clues would be in the digital files and traces.”

“I thought as much when I looked at them. I’ll get someone on to looking for digital signatures and IP addresses.”

“Great. Bet it’s the same as for the official Cyprus file. Have you got someone?”

Hardacre sighed, frustrated. “The one person I know I can trust is struggling with the expertise on it. I’m afraid to ask around. It’s not exactly legal, and I don’t want whoever it is to hear we’re digging.”

Robin remembered Strike’s eyes boring into hers, his finger tracing the letter C on her palm. “Cormoran says it’s Chambers.”

Hardacre sighed again. “I was beginning to wonder. Is he sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Right. Well, Oggy wouldn’t say that unless he was sure, so that’s what I’ll have to assume for now. That makes my life tough, he’s got a large sphere of influence.”

“We’ll get him,” Robin said confidently.

“We will. It just might take some time. Right, let’s not be on too long, they might be keeping an eye on Ilsa’s phone, she is his lawyer.”

“Right. Thank you, Graham. Talk soon.”

“Bye.”

Robin thought for a moment, looking at the addresses in front of her, tapping the pen on the yellow square of paper.

“Fuck protocol,” she muttered, and pulled her mobile from her pocket and dialled Barclay’s number.

“Hi, Sam, it’s Robin. Want to earn some evening overtime?”

They chatted for a few minutes, and it was agreed that Barclay would watch Chambers’ address and try to photograph any comings and goings. Business thus concluded, Robin hung up and sat and thought for long minutes. Eventually, a little more slowly, she picked up her mobile and dialled again.

“Spanner? It’s Robin. Just how good a tech person are you? And how do you feel about some highly illegal hacking? It would have to be absolutely traceless...”


	28. Pressure

“You’re doing what?” Ilsa stared at Robin.

“Looking into the tampered files, trying to get dates and IP addresses so we know who did it and from where.”

“How?”

Robin hesitated.

Nick was still at work, and Ilsa had joined her on the patio with her own glass of ginger ale.

“Spanner is finding me someone,” she finally said, reluctantly. She was fully expecting Ilsa to disapprove of her brother-in-law being roped in, but Ilsa only nodded quietly.

“I wondered if we should ask him,” she murmured, “but I couldn’t, really. I mean, it couldn’t come from me or Nick.”

The two women sipped their ginger ale and regarded one another, and then Ilsa grinned.

“We’ve come a long way from ‘yikes, there are classified documents in my house’ and ‘we can’t take pictures of Army evidence’,” she said with a giggle. “Now suddenly it’s ‘let’s hope we don’t get caught hacking into their databases’.”

Robin laughed. “Needs must,” she replied. “If they’d managed to take care of this internally, we wouldn’t have had to sort it out for them.”

“True,” Ilsa mused. “But I hope you’re not anticipating thanks. They’re likely to be cross even if they were in the wrong.”

Robin shrugged. “It had occurred to me,” she replied. “My plan is to get Spanner to just look, and pass on the information of where to look. We just have to provide enough evidence to spark their own internal investigation. Then we won’t even need to admit we poked around ourselves.”

“But they could cover that up, too.”

Robin pulled a face. “Cormoran and Graham both still believe in the fundamental integrity of the Army,” she replied. “We’ve just got to get it high enough, point enough of a finger at Chambers, that he’s not allowed near the case while it’s investigated, and the truth will out.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ilsa replied.

Robin’s expression hardened. “To be honest, I don’t care if I’m not. If we can bring this to a satisfactory conclusion, get Cormoran off the hook and Faulkner exonerated, then if their internal investigation messes up, well, we’ve done our bit. That’s their problem.”

“True.”

Robin took another sip of ginger ale.

“Um, you wouldn’t happen to have an old mobile you’re no longer using, would you?”

Ilsa nodded. “Probably, in a drawer somewhere.”

“Could I borrow it? I’ll get a pay-as-you-go SIM. Graham has got a burner phone for keeping in touch.”

“He’s worried you might be being bugged?”

“I guess.” Robin sighed. “They were following me, after all.”

Ilsa nodded. “I’ll go and have a look in a minute.” She paused. “You think they’re still following you?”

“I don’t think so,” Robin replied slowly. “They’ll have seen that plain clothes officers are watching the office and that I’ve left the flat.”

Ilsa grinned. “Nick said he saw a guy lurking down the street the other night,” she said. “He was pretty sure it was Shanker.”

Robin smiled. “Bless him,” she said. “He doesn’t need to, I have you guys now.”

“Corm asked him to watch you, so I suppose he’s going to keep doing it.”

“I suppose.”

Ilsa sighed. “Anyway, we have a slightly more pressing matter,” she began, slowly.

Robin looked at her in alarm. “What?”

“The powers that be on the Army side are trying to push Cormoran’s case along. They want to secure a date in front of a judge.”

“How soon?”

“Couple of weeks.”

Robin sat up. “What? That’s not long!”

“I know,” Ilsa replied grimly. “I’ve replied stalling, saying we’re still gathering evidence, but they know I’m playing for time. What other evidence could I be gathering than what’s in the file and Corm’s statement, and Graham’s?”

Robin set her glass down with a thud. “We’re at a stalemate,” she said in frustration. “Even if Spanner can find evidence of who tampered with the files and when, we can’t admit illegally gathered evidence to a court proceedings.”

“No,” Ilsa agreed.

“And Graham didn’t sound too hopeful about getting official permission to watch Chambers, let alone anything useful like a warrant to search his house or the authority to force him to be interviewed.”

Ilsa ran a hand through her hair. “So we’re going to end up having to go to court with what we have,” she said. “And that’s not great. It’s his word against theirs.”

“We’ve got the missing pieces.”

“All they prove is Corm took out key evidence. Without the full investigation, he shouldn’t have taken out the pieces those other guys created. And if we produce his faked interview with Faulkner and try to argue it was faked, he gets either accused of falsifying evidence, or if they decide it was real and he took it out anyway, accused of letting a guy who confessed go free.”

Robin sighed. “What a mess.”

“Yup.”

“So we’ve got a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks in which something has to give, or the Army might be able to successfully argue that Faulkner was a drug dealer and Cormoran helped him escape.”

“Yes. And they’ll presumably try to throw the book at him, given how much else they managed to pin on Faulkner since.”

“God, yeah,” Robin groaned. “The fact that Faulkner was convicted for drugs later is hardly going to help our case.”

“No.”

“And then Cormoran will be convicted of falsifying evidence and aiding a criminal. Even if he doesn’t get that long in prison, given the historical nature of the case and his lack of involvement in the actual drugs, his reputation and business will be ruined. Our business.”

The two women stared at one another.

Eventually Robin sighed deeply and picked up her glass again.

Ilsa stood. “I’ll go and find you that phone.”

“Thanks,” Robin replied absently, swirling her glass and staring into it, watching the little round pebbles of almost-melted ice clink against one another.


	29. Upping the Ante

Robin took a slow, steadying breath and slipped the lock pick from her pocket.

Her mind hummed, her body on high alert. She was sure the house was empty, having watched from the alley behind for hours. She had been absolutely silent scaling the back wall, had been a shadow around the edges of the garden, sticking to the fence line. Now she was mentally running through everything Strike had taught her as she worked the pick in the lock on the French windows and hoped that firstly there was no dead bolt system and secondly, and more importantly, no alarm.

The lock clicked, and she slowly withdrew the pick and slid it back into her pocket. She took another shaky breath and eased the handle down, ready to flee at the first sign of an alarm sounding.

She was now officially breaking and entering. Wardle and Hardacre both would tear strips off her for endangering what was supposed to be an above-board, protocol-following investigation. But time was running out, and she wasn’t going to see Strike convicted and Chambers get off scot-free. The chances of him having the evidence they needed in his house were slim, she knew, but it had to be worth a shot. He must be keeping the files somewhere.

She stepped into the house, light on soft-soled trainers, a shadow dressed all in black. No flappy coat tails, no trailing bag, just soft, slim black trousers with enough pockets for lock picks and phone, and a long-sleeved black top. A dark rucksack, empty, sat flat against her back. A black beanie hat completely hid her red-gold hair, and she had deliberately smudged a little dirt onto her cheeks - not a huge amount, but just enough to take the shine off her skin. She was as inconspicuous as it was possible to be.

She was in Chambers’ dining room. A circular oak table with four chairs neatly tucked in, a matching oak sideboard with a clock and a couple of decorative dishes. Robin eyed the drawers, but she didn’t think that was where she would hide important documents if this were her house.

A property further down the street was on sale; Robin had visited the estate agent’s website and memorised the layout. She was pinning her hopes on this one being similar. It had been hard to tell from surveillance from back and front where the study might be. Chambers was clearly doing well for himself; this was a big house.

She moved silently out into the hall, heart hammering and senses on high alert. It was softly lit from further along by a lamp on an occasional table, giving the house an air of awaiting its occupants’ return. She padded along to the next door, opened it as quietly as she could and peered in.

Downstairs loo. She closed the door again and crept to the next, wondering as she did who carefully closed all the doors when they went out for the evening. If she ever owned a house like this (and the thought of that ever happening brought a wry smile to her face), she’d have doors open all over the place to give it a homely, welcoming feel. This house felt stilted, forbidding, hostile.

She opened the next door, opposite the hallway leading down to the imposing front door. A coat cupboard.

Ahead of her was the kitchen. That much had been obvious from staking out the rear of the house. The back door leading into the utility was on that side of the back aspect.

The front, then. Robin stepped across the hall and opened another door.

 _Bingo_. An old, dark wood desk with an inlaid, embossed leather surface. A carver chair. A floor-to-ceiling bookcase. A generic picture of a Spitfire in flight hung on the wall behind the chair.

Robin crept in, and slowly made her way around the room. Would there be a safe? Behind the picture? She reached up and gently eased it away from the wall, but all was in shadow behind it.

She glanced at the window. The blinds looked thick enough. Robin slid her mobile from her back pocket and held it up, using the dim backlight of the screen to illuminate the space behind the picture. She would rather not use the torch facility unless she had to. To those who knew what they were looking for, torchlight creeping around an otherwise darkened house was extremely easy to spot from outside even behind curtains and drapes, and very suspicious.

Nothing but blank wall. Robin grinned to herself in the darkness. She’d been watching too many Hollywood films. She moved across to the desk and started opening drawers as quietly as she could.

Nothing of interest. Bank statements, vehicle licence documents, insurance papers. The standard stuff one would keep in one’s study drawers. She moved to the other side of the chair.

The top drawer was locked, holding fast stubbornly when she pulled at it. Her heart rate spiked a little. Could this be...?

She had a very quick hunt on the surface of the desk. A laptop, some photographs. The only things that could perhaps hold a key were a pen pot and a little pottery dish inexpertly made, perhaps by a child or grandchild. The former contained pens, the latter paperclips. No sign of the key.

She sighed. It had been worth a try. One of the things Strike had taught her - people were often inherently lazy with security, would lock a drawer but leave the key nearby for convenience. But if the key was here, she couldn’t spot it by the dim light of her mobile and the little glow spilling in through the open study door.

Out came the picks again, and after a few minutes and a bit of a wrench - the lock was stiff - she had the drawer open.

She slid the contents out, and promptly forgot everything but what was in front of her.

Here, miraculously, were the files. The original Cyprus case - after all this time focusing on it, she recognised the file number, in the same format that Strike, methodical to his core when it came to investigating, still used. She flipped it open, and found page after page in his spidery scrawl. Her heart fluttered a little at the sight of his familiar hand here in this alien environment. For a fanciful moment it was like he was here with her, as though he had somehow meant for her to find the file and help to clear his name.

She set it aside and flipped open the next, scanning the cover sheet. Another drugs case, investigated by Gary Faulkner, dated a year or so after the Cyprus case.

The next and the next were similar. With shaking hands, Robin closed them and eased the rucksack from her back. She hadn’t actually believed, deep down, that she would find the files at all.

She quickly stuffed them into the rucksack, jiggling them right down into it properly so that they wouldn’t rustle as she moved, closed the zip and slipped the rucksack back over her shoulders. She slid the drawer closed, and leaned down to try to lock it, the pick in her hand again.

Locking something with lock picks was not something she’d had as much practice with, but it might buy her more valuable time before anyone noticed the files were missing. She cursed under her breath as she jiggled and wrestled with the stiff mechanism.

It took her a moment to register that the grinding of gears that she heard was not, in fact, from the lock in front of her, but from the front door.

Robin froze. Someone was opening the door now, and she could hear low voices, a man and a woman. Chambers was home.

 _Fuck_. There was nowhere in the study to hide. She’d be seen immediately from the doorway if she crawled under the desk. She had to wait and hope no one entered the study, or she had to find another room, and she had to decide at once.

Robin slipped out of the study door back into the hall. In the entrance hall, she could hear the voices, pleasant chat about the play they had seen, the soft rustle of people fussing with coats.

The door to the coat cupboard was right in front of her, and to get back to the dining room and escape, she’d have to pass between it and the end of the entrance hall.

Robin swung the other way, saw the stairs and hurried swiftly up them. _What are you doing?_ she asked herself as she ran lightly up, keeping to one side to minimise creaks. But surely a house this size would have at least one spare bedroom where she might hide until Chambers and his wife had gone to bed.

She rounded the corner and stepped onto the landing as, behind her, she heard the door to the coat cupboard open and the click of a woman’s heels along to the kitchen. Soon she could hear a kettle being filled, the pottery clank of mugs.

The house possessed an imposing front porch with a sturdy-looking roof. Robin opted for a door that she guessed would lead her to the room with the window above it, and found herself in what had clearly until recently been a teenager’s bedroom. It reminded her of her old room back in Masham. A single bed stood against the wall. Old pony books filled a book shelf, on top of which two battered teddy bears sat silently waiting for their owner to return or perhaps to collect them.

Robin crossed swiftly to the window. She was in luck. Below and a little to the side, the porch roof jutted out. She gazed down at it. It was a bigger drop than she’d imagined, and not a straight one either. She’d have to swing herself across somehow...

Below her, footsteps back and forth. Her heart hammering, Robin stood frozen with indecision. Her chances of executing this escape silently were slim, but surely any escape was better than none? As long as she could get down without injury, she could make her escape - it was dark, and she was fast.

 _Chambers is Army,_ she reminded herself. _He might be a lot older than you, but he could well be fast too._

A shout from below sent a shock of fear through her stomach. An angry voice ranting, a slammed door.

She had left the study door open.

She’d had no choice; closing it would have taken her a few more precious seconds, even more so trying to close it quietly. But in a house with all its internal doors carefully closed, her theft had been discovered at once. She hadn’t managed to lock the drawer again either.

Robin listened, trying to follow the patterns of footsteps in her mind’s eye. She heard the door to the dining room open, and knew the unlocked French windows would be discovered at once.

The woman’s footsteps clicking in the hall again, then changing to thuds on the carpeted stairs.

She had no choice. Robin slid the window open and, praying that no one from any of the houses around was watching, slung a leg over the sill.

A distant crash gave her pause; it sounded as though something had hit the fence at the back of the property. Suddenly she could hear the footsteps descending the stairs again, running back along the hall towards the dining room. Could hear what was presumably Chambers’ voice, in the back garden now.

It was a merciful, temporary reprieve. Robin pulled her other leg out of the little bedroom, and shuffled herself as far along as she could. She rolled onto her stomach and lowered herself down, wincing at the scrape of the old, jagged-edged window ledge on the softness of her stomach. Hands gripping the sill of the window itself, she dropped herself lower until one trainered foot could feel the roof of the porch.

She didn’t have long, and she had to get this right first time. Robin swung herself away from the porch roof, pushing off with her foot, and as her weight swung back like a pendulum, she pushed off and sideways and let go. There was a sickening moment where she seemed suspended in mid-air, and then her feet connected with the roof below.

It was steeper than she’d expected, and mossier. Her trainers failed to find purchase and suddenly she was slithering down the side of the little porch roof. Robin flung out an arm, her fingertips finding the apex of the tiles as her foot caught in the guttering and her slide stopped.

For the briefest of blissful moments she’d made it, her fingers scrabbling for a grip on the mossy tile and her toes clinging to the guttering, and then with a crack and a lurch, the flimsy metal half-tube gave way beneath her feet and, with a slither and curse, she was falling off the little roof.


	30. Escape

Something in Robin’s self-defence training kicked in; one of the things she’d been taught was how to fall. As her feet hit the ground - and she landed mercifully in a flower bed and not on the gravelled drive - she automatically dropped and rolled, breaking her fall and saving her ankle. A white-hot lance of pain echoed up her arm where it had caught on the broken guttering as she’d slid past, but that wasn’t going to slow her down. Robin lay for a breathless moment among the flowers that she had all but obliterated, and then urgency tugged at her and she rolled to her feet.

There was no creeping where gravel was concerned. Robin sprinted, even as she heard another shout from behind her. She shot out of the front gate and randomly turned left, racing up the road and turning left again down the first side street she came to. Immediately she crossed the road and hurtled down another alley to her right, then looked for another left. _Zigzag, it confuses a pursuer,_ they’d said.

She was being followed, she could hear the pounding of trainers behind her even as she ran. Panic rose in her but she fought it back desperately. _Not now._ Swallowing it down by sheer force of will, she dodged and changed direction again, darting down another side street.

Still the steps followed, not catching her, but not falling behind either. Whoever it was was matching her pace.

In her haste and panic, Robin had allowed herself to become disoriented. The streets she was on had grown smaller and smaller; she needed to find her way back to a better-lit area, and she was no longer sure exactly where she was. Her breath heaved in her chest and the blood pounded in her ears, and she couldn’t tell whether she was suffering from a lack of fitness, the beginnings of a panic attack, or both.

On she ran, desperately trying to overcome the fear distorting her vision and _think_. Why wasn’t her pursuer catching her up?

Then, suddenly, a low, gasping voice from the chasing figure.

“Robin!”

She knew that voice. Robin stumbled to a halt, gasping. She didn’t think she’d ever been so glad to see Shanker in her life. Well, apart from maybe one other recent occasion.

He arrived, panting, at her side. “Fuck me, you’re fast,” he grumbled, bending double, hands on his knees. “For a girl,” he added.

Gasping for breath, Robin started laughing, and then suddenly her knees gave out and she was sitting on the pavement and crying, flooded with adrenaline that made the blood thunder in her ears and turned the world black around the edges. Dimly she could hear Shanker asking her if she was all right, but all she could do was fight to regulate her breathing and hope she wasn’t going to pass out.

...

It took ten minutes for Robin to get her breathing and heart rate back under control and convince Shanker that she was fine and didn’t require medical assistance, especially once she had come back to herself enough to notice the bloody cut down her forearm. It was an almost perfect match for the scar on the other arm that the Shacklewell Ripper had given her, but much more superficial in nature. Having established that it was merely a rather jagged and nasty-looking cut, but nevertheless only a skin wound, she wrapped her torn sleeve around it as best she could and declared the matter concluded.

Curtains had started to twitch; Robin pulled herself up on Shanker’s arm and they strolled onwards. Shanker, who was never lost in London, led them unerringly back towards the nearest high street. He smoked as they went, his gold tooth glinting as he exhaled and his other hand clicking, working off the tensions of the past few hours.

“Still following me, then?” Robin asked presently, a dry note to her voice.

“Bloody good thing I am, an’ all, gettin’ yourself in trouble like that.”

Robin cast him a sideways look. “Did you make that crash?”

Shanker exhaled smoke towards the sky. “Musta been cats in the bins again,” he said sagely.

Robin hid a tiny smile. “Must have been. Have you been following me everywhere?”

Shanker grinned now. “Didja think I was gonna stop just cos you’re at Nick and Ilsa’s?” he asked.

“I’m safe there,” Robin protested mildly.

Shanker snorted. “Nick’s too nice,” he said dismissively. “That skinny streak o’ piss doesn’ look like ’e’s ever ’it anyone in ’is life, and I bet ’e doesn’t even carry a knife.”

Robin hid a smile, both at the idea of Shanker declaring anyone else to be skinny and at his assessment. “I’d imagine not,” she murmured, trying to picture Nick carrying a weapon around, and failing.

“An’ anyway, I know you’re safe in their ’ouse,” he went on, “but I also knew you might do something crazy. Like a bit of breaking and entering and a spot o’ petty theft.”

Robin said nothing. She could hardly argue.

“Didja get what you needed?”

“Of course I did.”

Shanker grinned. “Of course you did.” She could hear the faint note of pride in his voice, and it bolstered her confidence.

“But I need to get it to Hardacre,” Robin mused. “And he’s in Edinburgh. And some pretty dangerous people who know where I live and doubtless know I’m currently staying at Ilsa and Nick’s will want to stop me.”

Shanker flicked his cigarette butt into a hedge. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“I was hoping to get away with it for a few hours while I got sorted,” Robin mused. “Before they noticed. But they’re on my case already, and I don’t want to have to drive all night.” She wouldn’t admit it to Shanker, but hours of tension and high adrenaline washed away by the relief of escape and the tsunami of her first panic attack in a very long time had left her exhausted; she highly doubted her ability to make the overnight drive to Scotland right now, and she was afraid to take the train in case Chambers somehow followed her.

“Want me to nick you a car?”

Robin chuckled. “No, thanks. Then I really would have the authorities after me. I have a car, packed and ready to go. I was going to leave first thing if I got the files.”

Shanker shrugged. “They can track you by the number plate if they want.”

“Not with the Land Rover,” Robin replied slowly. “I never did get around to changing it from Dad’s name to mine. There’s no car registered to me at my London address.”

Shanker nodded approvingly.

“It’s at Ilsa and Nick’s, though, and I guess they’ll be watching there, and at my flat.”

“Whatcha gonna do, then? Where you gonna sleep?”

Robin thought, but only for a moment. The office would be being watched too. “Vanessa’s, I guess.”

“She that copper?” Shanker’s voice held a note of disapproval at the company Robin chose to keep.

“Yeah,” Robin said, grinning again.

They strolled on.

“Tell ya what,” Shanker said suddenly. “I’ll walk you to this Vanessa’s, you can get some kip. You’ll be safe there. They won’t find ya.”

“And then?” Robin looked at him searchingly.

“And the Land Rover will be outside ’ers tomorrow morning.”

Robin chuckled. “Shanker, are you going to steal me my own car?”

He shrugged. “It’s the only one you’ll let me steal, right?”

“Right.”

“Tha’s sorted, then.”

Feeling cheered now she had a plan, Robin nodded and pulled her mobile from her pocket. Shanker padded quietly along next to her, smoking and glaring at passers-by who were foolish enough to give them a second glance, while Robin rang Vanessa.


	31. Road Trip

“Call me when you get there.” Vanessa leaned on the side door of the Land Rover, peering in at Robin while she arranged herself comfortably for the long drive ahead.

“I will,” Robin promised. Her mobile, fully charged, lay on the passenger seat next to the old phone of Ilsa’s she had borrowed, also fully charged and with its new throwaway SIM installed. Next to them sat the lunch Vanessa had insisted on making for her and a flask of coffee.

“And I’ll ring Ilsa as soon as I get to work.”

“Thanks, Van.” Robin felt terribly guilty about the Herberts. They’d have been going out of their mind with worry when she didn’t turn up last night. She’d told them she might be very late and not to wait up; hopefully this morning the absence of the Land Rover parked nose to nose with Nick’s Honda would have told them she was all right. She hadn’t wanted to ring the house in case the phones were being tapped, so she’d sent Ilsa a brief text simply saying “I’m fine”, but she couldn’t risk giving her friend any details. Vanessa was going to ring Ilsa at work today, via the main switchboard rather than her direct line, and fill her in without actually saying too much, just in case.

To her surprise, Robin had slept well, even on the narrow uncomfortable sofa in Vanessa’s little living room that would for ever remind her of those first few nights after she had left Matthew. Once she had formulated a plan in her head, and was confident she had looked at it from every angle and found it to be watertight, she was satisfied. Then the exhaustion had caught up with her. Half a glass of red wine that Vanessa had insisted she drink to help her sleep had indeed had the effect of practically knocking her unconscious.

A long drive lay ahead of her, but at the end of it, a home-cooked meal and a night at her parents’ house in Masham. She’d only rung this morning to say she was coming, deliberately not giving her mum enough time to round up her brothers and make a fuss; it was just a flying visit, she’d insisted, to pick up her post and break up the journey to Scotland to interview a suspect.

She was looking forward to a night away from London.

...

Strike glared at Ilsa as though she were personally responsible for losing a capable, independent, adult woman.

“What do you mean, you don’t know even where she is?” he hissed. The warden had thankfully left them alone for a few minutes, clearly having got bored of their meetings where nothing ever happened.

Ilsa shrugged. “Exactly that,” she replied. “Va— Er, Verity, Eric’s friend, rang me at work this morning.”

Strike stared at her. “And said what?”

“That she was fine, and she’d be back in a day or two.”

“Back from where?” Strike demanded.

Ilsa took a slow, patient breath. “That’s the whole point, Corm. I don’t know. She went out last night, again - she’s been out every night this week, late, tailing a suspect, saying don’t wait up, and—”

“We don’t have a case that requires that much evening work.”

Ilsa quirked an eyebrow. “You’ve been stuck in here, how would you know?”

Strike huffed crossly, impatient and angry and knowing he was taking it out on Ilsa. “She’s been filling me in.”

“Not on this, clearly.”

Strike sat back, his mind racing. “She was supposed to set Barclay on the evening stuff. So even if she had taken on a new client—” He broke off and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s up to something.”

“That is the general consensus.” Ilsa had discussed Robin in detail with her husband the previous evening. They had both agreed that Robin was working unnaturally long hours and being quite cagey about where she was going and what she was doing. Only the fact that Nick had a couple of times spotted Shanker lurking near the end of their road as he strolled home from the bus stop after a late shift had reassured them. Whatever Robin was doing, Shanker was still keeping an eye on her.

“What about George?” Strike asked sharply. Ilsa shrugged again, sensed his irritation.

“Kind of gone AWOL.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“He’ll only communicate via a burner phone now, and only Robin has the number, so without her, we can’t get told of him.”

“Just ring him at work!”

Ilsa slid a hand across the table and rested it, briefly, on her old friend’s forearm. He wasn’t good at inaction, never had been.

“Don’t you think I thought of that?” she asked gently. “I don’t want to blunder in and tip anyone off, Corm. Robin and...George know what they’re doing, both of them. You trust them?”

“Obviously.” He glared at her. “I’d trust either one of them with my life.”

“Well, then. That’s pretty much what you’re doing. And they’re both on the case. You’re grand.”

“But—”

The door clicked open and the warden stepped back in, a plastic cup of tea in his hand, and leaned against the wall, idly scrolling though his phone.

Strike sighed and sat back in his chair, ran a frustrated hand through his hair again.

“So,” Ilsa continued as though she hadn’t abruptly broken off to inform him of Robin’s disappearance. “Next time I see you, we should have a court date. We can start to plan your defence, how we’d like the appearance to proceed.”

Strike scowled, and Ilsa met his gaze with a steely glare. About the only thing he could do at this point was play along, keep the other side guessing.

Strike knew it too. He made a visible effort.

“Great,” he replied. “Sooner I get my name cleared, sooner I can get out of here.”

“That’s the spirit,” Ilsa said encouragingly.


	32. Safe Haven

A long, uneventful drive, a huge plateful of her mum’s lasagne, a large glass of red wine, and Robin had slept like the dead for eight hours straight in her old bedroom. She was glad her parents had finally redecorated; looking at the space where Destiny’s Child had once been was almost as bad as the poster still being there. Now the walls were a soft apple green, the bedspread white cotton sprigged with ferns.

Stretched out on the rug on the floor next to her bed, the family’s chocolate Labrador, Rowntree, snored steadily, making her grin and think of Strike.

She lay for long minutes, watching the sky slowly grow lighter, listening for any sound of movement in the house, but it was early. She’d checked her onward route last night; it was a good three hours and more from here to Edinburgh, and she was longing to get back to London already, wondering if she could make it back tonight. It was a mammoth journey to undertake in one day, but if Hardacre could share the driving...

She needed the bathroom, so she rolled quietly out of bed. Rowntree woke at once, his tail thumping against the carpeted floor. He was always pleased whenever any of the Ellacotts’ adult children came home to visit, but he had a particular fondness for Robin, whom he had watched over so carefully during the year she had been almost a prisoner in this very room. He’d barely left her side, and it was to walk him that she had finally first ventured out.

He was older now, but still he heaved himself up off the floor and followed her good-naturedly down the hall to the bathroom, waited dutifully outside and followed her back again to stand expectantly in the middle of the bedroom floor and look at her. _My turn,_ he seemed to say.

Robin smiled softly and petted his head. “Come on, then,” she said, and pulled her jeans and jumper back on. She was sticking to long sleeves to hide the gash down her arm; she had washed it carefully last night but hadn’t had time to organise herself a proper dressing yet, and she didn’t want her mum making a fuss. The scrapes across her stomach from the windowsill were a mere irritation, the skin red raw in places but not damaged enough to draw blood.

 _We are a pair,_ she thought, thinking of the faint bloom of grey that could still be seen ringing Strike’s eye last time she saw him. Her injuries would fade soon enough too.

Rowntree watched while she dressed, and then trotted behind her, flopped down the stairs into the kitchen, and made a little skip as she reached her coat and his lead down from the hooks by the back door. When he was younger he would have leaped about in excitement at the prospect of a walk. These days a hop and a skip were the preferred methods of showing enthusiasm.

Robin turned the key in the back door and opened it, stepping out and taking a huge, welcome lungful of clean country air. Mist coiled gently along the ground, and dew drops twinkled at her from low leaves and grass blades. The sun would soon burn it off, but for now the track down to the woods was slightly shrouded, beautiful in the gentle pink and orange of the dawn.

Rowntree trotted ahead, tracking back and forth across the path in front of her, sniffing busily, reacquainting himself with the world. Watching his relaxed manner, Robin felt a tension she hadn’t known she was carrying ease from her a little. London was far away, no one except Vanessa knew she was here, and Rowntree, ever alert, was behaving normally. She felt safe for the first time in weeks.

Swinging the lead, she followed the dog down into the woods and along by the little stream, listening to the gentle babble of the water. Rowntree splashed in and out as he always did, paddling in the shallows, and Robin laughed at him fondly and followed, hopping from stone to stone to keep her trainers dry.

She wondered if the house would be awake when she got back. Martin was away with friends, and Stephen and Jenny had had a social engagement they couldn’t get out of at short notice, but Linda had managed to drum up Robin’s other brother, Jonathan. Michael Ellacott had grinned fondly at them over dinner and said he didn’t often feel outnumbered by the redheads these days; his other two sons were dark haired like he was, or rather had been. Linda had reminded him that technically she was grey too now and so the sides were equal. He’d told her he would always see her hair as the same beautiful amber shade as Robin’s no matter how grey she got, making Robin smile softly and Jonathan gag exaggeratedly.

It had been a lovely evening, cut short only by Robin’s need to sleep. The country air, good food and wine had anaesthetised her so that she was barely able to keep her eyes open after dinner, yawning repeatedly as though to crack her jaw, until Linda had shooed her upstairs to bed. A brief, blissful soak in the bath - her little bathroom in London only had a shower - had only helped Robin sleep even better.

She was hungry now. A good breakfast, and then she must get back on the road. Her mum had handed her the envelope last night containing the file that had hidden all these years at the Herberts’. Feeling somewhat paranoid still, Robin had hidden it and the files she had stolen from Chambers’ house behind the bookcase in the bedroom she was sleeping in. She couldn’t wait to get them all safely to Edinburgh and hand them over to Hardacre.

“Come on, Rowntree,” she called softly, and whistled. Wagging, the big dog trotted after her as she turned and began to make her way back up towards the house. As usual, he caught up with her and trotted ahead, knowing the way and liking to lead.

Robin enjoyed the burn in her legs and the thump of her heart as they marched up the track to the apex as the trees cleared and the house came back into view. It felt good to be able to stride out unhindered by people and buildings.

Ahead of her, Rowntree pricked up his ears, and Robin, ever alert to his change in mood, found herself suddenly watching ahead, wondering what he had seen or heard. He had stiffened slightly, his trotting steps slowing.

Probably just a squirrel or a pheasant. She didn’t want him running off on her. She called him and whistled, and he obediently turned back to her. Robin patted him, quietly told him he was a good boy and clipped his lead to his collar.

He fell into step beside her as he had been trained to do on the lead, but carried on watching and listening as they proceeded towards the house.

They came round the last corner, and suddenly Rowntree stiffened and began to growl. Heart hammering, Robin urged him forward, and then she heard the unmistakable sound of twigs snapping, a gravelly crunch and hurried footsteps. She hastened around the house, hearing the slam of a car door and the revving of an engine; breaking into a run, she was just in time to see a battered silver Vauxhall Astra roar away up the lane. It shuddered on the rough road surface, but she managed a glimpse of the number plate. DU, or possibly DO, a number that could have been 03 or 05, a cluster of letters that ended in an X. Cursing herself for not getting a full plate, Robin stood and watched it veer out of sight round the corner.

So she had been followed even here. It was too much of a coincidence. Feeling shaky again, she reached down to pet Rowntree’s head, stroking behind his ears.

“Good boy,” she murmured, and Rowntree wagged his tail. With the stranger gone, he had swiftly lost interest in the vehicle and was snuffling at the verge again.

Robin turned back to the house, let herself and the dog into the kitchen. Jonathan was sat at the table with a mug of tea, reading yesterday’s paper, and got up to pour her a mug from the pot.

“Did I hear a car?” he asked, passing her her tea.

“Thanks,” Robin replied, taking the mug and hanging up Rowntree’s lead. “Yeah, there was an Astra out in the lane, shot off when I came back.” She hesitated. “I think I’m being followed.” She wouldn’t have voiced her fear out loud if her parents had been in the room.

Her brother stared at her. “Followed? Why?”

Robin shrugged, sitting down at the table. Rowntree plodded to the utility room door, investigated his empty food bowl and then stared at her reproachfully.

“It’s for a case,” Robin replied. “Hang on, Rowntree, I’m coming.” She got up again and went into the utility room to find the dog biscuits.

“I’ve got something they want,” she called over her shoulder. “And I need to get it to my colleague in Edinburgh. But they’re going to be following me.”

She shook biscuits into Rowntree’s bowl while he watched her, wagging his tail approvingly. _Think,_ she told herself. _You’re nearly there. You just have to get to Edinburgh._

She grinned to herself, set Rowntree’s breakfast on the floor next to his water bowl, and went back to sit opposite her brother, who had stopped trying to read the paper and was watching her, fascinated and, she could see, impressed. She eyed his red-amber hair, so similar to hers.

“Fancy helping me put them off the scent, Jon? I’ll, er, need to borrow your car for a couple of days.”


	33. Edinburgh

It took fifteen minutes to explain and convince Jonathan of her plan, and ten minutes to throw her things together. Robin crept around the house, collecting bits and pieces, stowing the files in her holdall. Her parents wouldn’t be pleased that she’d sneaked off before they were awake, but she could worry about that later. She had to get the key evidence to Hardacre as swiftly as possible.

Half an hour after the Vauxhall had careered off up the lane, Jonathan, wearing the big jacket Robin kept in the Land Rover to keep her warm on long, draughty journeys and Robin’s beanie hat, set off after it. Robin had fussed around him, making sure a shock of his red-gold hair was visible on the window side, until he’d batted her off impatiently. Then she’d grinned, hugged him, and told him to keep them busy as long as he could. He trundled away up the lane, muttering darkly at having to drive the rickety old vehicle until Robin could get back to Yorkshire to swap cars back, and then she climbed into the driving seat of his Volkswagen and set off in the other direction. It was a long way round to the main road this way, but she and her brothers knew all the lanes around here like the backs of their hands. She and Jonathan had worked out the likely place the Astra would be waiting to pick up and follow the Land Rover.

Her head wrapped in a scarf, every strand of hair tucked away, Robin kept her eyes peeled as she wiggled her way across country on little lanes until she finally reached the A road that would take her back to the motorway, but there was no sign of pursuit. No doubt whoever was following her was now being taken on a day trip around Yorkshire; Jonathan had laughed and said he wondered if they’d like to see Harrogate.

“Just don’t let them get close enough to work out you’re not me,” Robin had told him. “And go vaguely north for a bit. They probably know where I’m headed, so as soon as they stop tailing you, they’ll be after me again.”

Jonathan had nodded. “I’ll take them up the coast a bit,” he replied. “Nice views.”

Grinning, Robin had hugged him. “Thanks, Jon.”

“No worries, sis,” he’d replied. “This is quite good fun. You are...safe, though, right?”

“Of course,” Robin had assured him, hoping fervently that it was true. How rogue were these people? It was a big step from trashing her flat or tailing her to try to steal the files to actually causing her harm, but... “I’d just rather get to where I’m going without being followed. It makes me nervous.”

Finally, she reached the A1(M) just on the outskirts of Catterick, and pulled out onto the motorway. Breathing a sigh of thanks that Jonathan was just as much of a petrolhead as she was, she moved out into the outside lane and put her foot down. This journey was going to go much faster in a sporty little Golf than it would have in the rattly, ancient Land Rover.

...

Robin drove for an hour, watching her mirrors carefully, sticking to the generally accepted “just below eighty” that seemed to be common, although technically illegal, on British motorways.

By the time she was halfway, her stomach was growling and she needed the loo. She hadn’t remembered to have breakfast before she left, and she had had two big mugs of tea. It was still a good hour and a half on; she was going to have to risk a stop.

She’d be pretty safe at a crowded motorway services, she knew. All the same, she was on edge all the time she was at the Alnwick facilities, watching over her shoulder as she darted into the ladies’, keeping an eye out for a guy with a cauliflower ear as she queued up to buy a sandwich and a can of Coke. Within fifteen minutes she had wolfed her food in the car and was back on the road. She hadn’t spotted a silver Astra with a matching plate anywhere in the car park, but silver hatchbacks were ubiquitous and she couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t anywhere in the vicinity. She wished she had Cormoran with her, or Shanker, or indeed anyone to share the responsibility and the pressure.

The remainder of her drive was uneventful, and she found herself on the outskirts of Edinburgh, making her way unerringly along the route she’d memorised to Graham’s office. Fortunately the castle was a pretty easy target, looming high over the city.

She pulled onto the final hill, hoping against hope that Hardacre would be there and that she wasn’t just walking straight into the lions’ den, armed with the juicy evidence the lions wanted. Everything felt like a risk at the moment, but at some point she had to trust her own instincts and Strike’s and make the moves she believed to be the best ones.

She hadn’t told Hardacre she was coming, not wanting to tip anyone off. She’d just have to hope he was there, she thought, as she drove right up to the castle facility and announced herself, hoping that they would have a visitors’ car park where she could leave the car.

There was indeed. She parked up and climbed out of car, stretching after a long drive, and went and presented herself at the main entrance. Getting through security and convincing them that she was indeed here to see an officer despite her lack of appointment took a while; with patience and a charming smile, she persuaded the wary young man at the desk in front of her, who was clearly very afraid of getting things wrong, to ring Hardacre’s desk. Her eyes closed briefly as she hoped and prayed he would be there, and with a sigh of relief she heard him tell the young man he’d be right down. The guard hung up the phone, and Robin gave him a smile full of much more confidence than she felt, trying not to look as though she were clutching her holdall too tightly.

Five minutes later Graham Hardacre arrived, looking astonished to see her but covering it well, muttering about forgetting to put her appointment in the official log and apologising to the security guard. Robin was still clutching her holdall; she had to allow it to be briefly searched, and again had to just hope that the young man wouldn’t recognise the files in the bottom for what they were. Fortunately he was flustered enough at having to move aside her bra and knickers and her toiletries bag to pay much attention to the folders beneath, and Robin took her bag back gratefully and followed Hardacre into the building and along carpeted corridors until they reached his office, making stilted small talk along the way.

Door closed behind them, Hardacre turned to her. “What on _earth_ are you doing here?”

Robin dumped her bag on the floor, dropped into a crouch next to it and pulled out the files she’d been lugging around the country. She stood, grinned at him and shoved the bundle into his arms. “Here.”

Hardacre looked at her, looked down, flicked open the first file.

“Shit,” he marvelled, leafing through, hurriedly closing it and flipping open the second. He rifled through all of them briefly, and then raised his gaze back to hers. “Where the fuck did you get these?”

Robin lowered her voice. “I, er, broke into Chambers’ house.”

Hardacre’s jaw literally dropped. “You did what?” he managed.

“I broke into Chambers’ house,” Robin said again patiently. “While he was out at the theatre. And then I broke into his desk, and I stole them and brought them here.”

Hardacre stared at her. There was a long silence.

Robin shifted awkwardly. “I had to do something. It didn’t sound like you were going to be able to get a warrant, and Cormoran’s court date is next week.”

Hardacre blinked.

“And you have to be quick, because they know I have them, I nearly got caught,” Robin went on. “And I’ve been followed up here, I assume by Gough. I managed to lose him in Yorkshire.”

“Well, fuck me,” Hardacre muttered, looking down at the files again. “Oggy said you were good. I thought he was exaggerating.”

He glanced back up at her, and chuckled a little at her raised eyebrow. “Sorry! I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, obviously I knew you were good, or he wouldn’t be working with you. But he kept on and on about it, I just assumed he was trying to make me think his agency was better than it was.” He grinned. “Clearly he meant every word.”

Robin glanced around, more to hide her pink cheeks than anything else. Fierce pride sang in her veins. “Is there a loo I could use?” she asked, striving to keep her voice normal. “Long drive.”

“Of course! Sorry, Robin, where are my manners? Loo and a cup of tea, I would think.”

Robin nodded. “Both would be great, thank you,” she said.

Still holding the files, Hardacre showed her to the ladies’ toilets, where Robin, a small smile on her lips that she couldn’t get rid of even after splashing some cold water on her face, emptied her bladder and checked her phone messages. Jonathan was back in Masham, having kept the Astra busy for over an hour before it had accelerated past him with an angry roar and headed off into the distance. She texted him her thanks, assured him that she’d reached her destination without incident and would be in touch in a day or two to organise swapping cars back, and turned her attention to her email folder.

An email had arrived in the inbox of the throwaway gmail account Spanner had insisted she set up. It was gobbledegook to her; a PDF containing a list of IP addresses, dates, and what looked like random strings of numbers that Spanner assured her in the covering note were all the details a forensic computer expert would need to find the evidence of file tampering. She saved the file and then sent it from her saved folder to Hardacre’s own temporary email account, thus removing all trace of Spanner’s involvement from it, and dropped her phone back into her handbag.

She gazed at her reflection in the mirror. Her face was pale, her eyes too large in her face, tired lines around her eyes and mouth. But still that small grin, that fizz of pride. She knew Strike valued her in the business, but all the same, it was nice to hear that he’d sung her praises.

She had composed herself by the time she knocked on Hardacre’s office door. He called to her to come in, and she entered to find two steaming mugs of tea on the desk in front of him and the files spread out, and Hardacre talking animatedly on the phone.

She mouthed ‘check your email’ at him, and he pulled his mobile from his pocket. Still listening to whoever was talking now on the other end of his call, he motioned for her to sit, and Robin sank gratefully into the chair opposite and picked up her mug of tea.

His eyebrows shot up as he scanned the email, and the glance he cast her was as admiring as it was surprised. Robin grinned into her mug while he finished his call.

“Bloody hell, Robin,” he muttered, hanging up his desk phone and scanning the email again. “If you ever get bored of working in two cramped rooms in Soho tailing unfaithful spouses, look me up. You can have a job here any time you like.”

Robin sipped her tea. “I’m happy where I am, thanks.”

Hardacre nodded, a fond smile pulling across his face.

“Right, I need to go and talk to some very high-up people. I might be a while. Are you all right on your own here for a bit? You’re quite safe,” he added. “With what’s in these files and this email, Chambers and Gough would be arrested the moment they set foot in the building, which they will very well know. There’ll be a warrant out for their arrest within the hour.”

Robin nodded too. “I’d, er, like to get back to London tonight, if I can,” she said. “It’s a long drive, but—”

“I’ll come with you,” Hardacre said decidedly. “That’s where the action will be for the next couple of weeks while this gets tidied up, and I want to be in on it. Just let me pass all this to the relevant authorities. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

He was already standing, gathering up the files. Robin nodded, and made herself comfortable while Hardacre moved to the door, then paused and looked back at her. “Bloody well done,” he murmured, and Robin grinned. “Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just fluff, smut and a bit of tying all the ends together left!


	34. Back to London

Robin was dozing in her chair, exhausted, when Hardacre finally returned almost two hours later. He was looking inordinately cheerful.

“Boy, are those guys in trouble,” he said gleefully. “They’ve already forced open Chambers’ office here and started going through his stuff, and someone has been dispatched to the house in London to bring him in. Gough has gone AWOL, not sure what they’ll do about him.”

“He’s up here somewhere,” Robin replied, gathering her thoughts together. “In a silver Astra. I’m pretty sure he was the one following me.”

“Sounds about right,” Hardacre nodded. “Chambers never does his own dirty work if he can find a minion to do it for him.” He grinned at Robin as she pulled herself up out of her chair. “It’ll take a few hours to process, but Oggy and Faulkner should be released later today.”

Relief washed through Robin, and she smiled tiredly. “We did it.”

“ _You_ did it,” Hardacre replied. “God, to think, all this time the evidence we needed was right there in London—”

Robin nodded.“And the digital stuff?”

“Got someone high up in tech looking at it now,” Hardacre said. “And hopefully tightening up the security while they’re in there. Your guy’s good, he didn’t touch anything or leave any traces, apparently.”

Robin grinned.

“So, are we done here?” Hardacre looked around. “Not much else I can do at this point, I’ve handed everything over and the top bods will take it from here. They’re out looking for Gough, running his car plates through the tracing service. It won’t take long to track him down.”

Robin shrugged. “I’m done,” she replied. “I think we’ve wrapped this up in terms of our involvement? It’s an internal Army matter now.”

“Then let’s go,” Hardacre replied. “Shall we take your car? I just need to swing by home and grab some clothes and stuff.”

“Let’s go,” Robin agreed, and they set off. She smiled to herself at the buzz in the air of the compact offices; people scurrying about, and many curious glances cast her way. Hardacre had been keeping his inquiries as discreet as possible, and she had just arrived and dropped a metaphorical bomb on the place.

Hardacre chuckled as yet another head appeared from a side office to get a look at them. “You’re famous,” he murmured. “Most of these guys remember Oggy, and all of them hate Chambers. You’ll have gained a raft of fans.”

Robin laughed, and followed him up and out into the fresh Scottish air. Edinburgh was spread out below them, the sun was shining, and she suddenly felt lighter than she had in weeks, since Strike had first insisted on taking this case. The worry and stress seemed to fall from her shoulders like a weighted blanket, making her feel taller, freer. The Army would take the case from here, and she could go back to London, back to her own desk, back to being Strike’s partner, both in work and outside of it.

They settled themselves into Jonathan’s Volkswagen and started their journey south.

...

By the time they reached Ilsa and Nick’s house almost nine and a half hours later, via a quick stop at Hardacre’s Edinburgh residence and a few service station breaks to refuel themselves and the car and to switch drivers, a lot had happened. Hardacre had spent much of the time he wasn’t driving on the phone. Robin had spent her rest spells dozing. With the worry of the last few weeks lifted, and the exhaustion of recent late nights staking out Chambers’ house waiting for her opportunity and then the frantic race north, she could barely keep her eyes open.

Gough had been apprehended heading back south through Yorkshire and been taken to Catterick. Chambers had been hauled in in London. Interviewed separately, they had apparently turned on one another, hurling accusations of coercion and back-stabbing. It was looking as though Gough had, like his predecessor Faulkner, not truly realised exactly what he was being set up to take the rap for, and was furious to discover he was simply the next in a line of scapegoats. Chambers was attempting to lay all the blame at his door, but with the digital evidence and Robin’s upcoming testimony that the files had been at his house, his arguments were not being received by a credulous audience.

“They’re going to be sending someone to get a full statement from you,” Hardacre told Robin. “I’ve told them it can wait until Monday, which they have reluctantly agreed to. The Army likes to run to its own schedule, but you look like you could do with a day or two to recover.”

“God, yeah,” Robin replied, yawning again despite her third coffee. “I could sleep for a week.”

“Well, you can now.”

Robin had rung Ilsa, who had shrieked and cried a little and berated her for disappearing and worrying everyone, and then finally congratulated her on solving the case. She insisted Robin bring Hardacre to the house, said she had sent Nick out for a couple of bottles of champagne and that they were expecting Wardle to bring Strike round at any moment - had, in fact, been expecting him at any point in the last couple of hours. “Paperwork,” Ilsa had muttered. “Piles of it for a prison release, probably even more so when it’s the Army.” She didn’t tell Robin, but she had also instructed Nick to call in at Denmark Street earlier on his way home from work and pick up a change of clothes for Strike, and she was hoping to persuade him to stay too and dissect the case. He would need a lot of bringing up to speed.

Robin found her heart beating faster as she directed Hardacre through Wandsworth to the Herberts’ house. She was going to finally see her big partner again, properly, after all these weeks. She had to remind herself forcefully that as far as everyone else knew, he was just her business partner and to behave accordingly.

They pulled up outside and parked just as Nick came strolling down the road with Shanker, both laden from a trip to the off licence. He grinned at Robin and Hardacre as they clambered slowly from the car and stretched stiff, aching limbs and backs.

“Look who I found lurking up the road, trying to see if you were back yet,” Nick said cheerfully with a nod towards Shanker. Robin smiled at them both.

“Hi,” she replied, leaning to kiss Nick on the cheek around the case of beer he was carrying. Nick kissed her back warmly, and with a juggle managed to free a hand to shake Hardacre’s; then Ilsa was flinging open the front door with a squeal and racing down the path to throw her arms around Robin. In a flurry of chat and exchanged greetings, Robin was ushered inside and down the hallway to the kitchen, where she saw first Wardle and then, stepping back in from the Herberts’ patio in his huge coat, sliding his lighter back into his pocket, Strike.

The soft grin he gave her made every worry, every sleepless night, every frustration and all the tumult of the previous seventy-two hours worth it; forgetting her self-imposed intention to act in a calm and professional manner, Robin practically ran across the kitchen and threw herself into his arms, and he folded her into his embrace, warm and solid, smelling of spice and smoke just like always, huge and real and _here_. Tears spilled from her eyes as she hugged him, losing her composure entirely, the exhaustion and emotion of the last few days finally catching up with her.

Strike held her for long moments while she clung to him, long enough for Nick to clear his throat and turn to the business of opening the crate of beers and passing them round. Ilsa, surreptitiously wiping her eyes, was going through the kitchen drawers and laying out takeaway menus.

Finally Strike eased back a little, planting a gentle kiss to the side of Robin’s head. “Hey,” he murmured, and she giggled damply into his shoulder, sniffing.

“Hey,” she muttered back, and finally drew away, scrubbing at her tears with her fingers, embarrassed. Everyone was carefully not looking at them, but then Hardacre stepped forward to shake Strike’s hand, and Nick pressed a beer into his other. Ilsa leaned across the kitchen counter to pass Robin a glass of wine.

Chatter exploded across the room; everyone wanted to fill everyone else in on what had happened, and for a few moments chaos reigned, with much shaking of hands, clinking of beer bottles, kissing of Robin’s cheek.

Finally Ilsa cut into the hubbub with her best lawyerly voice.

“Right!” she called, and everyone turned to look at her. “Food. I think the easiest is probably fish and chips all round, unless anyone has any objections? It’s getting late, they’ll be closing soon.”

“I’ll go,” Nick replied, putting down his beer and grabbing his keys again.

“I’ll come and help,” Wardle said. “We can discuss Pochettino’s latest signing,” he added. Nick grinned at him.

“And you’ll stay the night, Corm,” Ilsa said firmly. “You two will want to catch up, and Robin’s been staying here anyway. You’re not going to be trekking off back to hers or yours tonight.”

Strike and Robin both looked at her and blinked. Ilsa grinned at them.

“I’m sorry, were you two still under the impression that no one knows you’re together?” she asked cheerfully.

Wardle snorted. “Well, I knew,” he replied. “I commented on Oggy’s choice of lipstick after that trip to the courts.”

Robin flushed, buried her face in her wine glass.

Shanker grinned toothily. “An’ I spotted the men’s shaving stuff in your bathroom, Rob.”

Strike raised an eyebrow and glanced at Hardacre, who shrugged. “My guy on the inside at Battersea was adamant you weren’t acting at visiting.”

Ilsa giggled. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice you’d nicked that picture from the file when I went to get the papers out to give to Graham?” she asked Robin, who went redder.

“And Oggy, your phone passcode is Robin’s date of birth,” Nick added.

Strike snorted. “How on earth do you know Robin’s date of birth?” His arm slid around his partner - in all senses - and she buried her flaming face against his shoulder.

“Same birthday as my niece,” Nick said. “And we know Robin’s ten years younger than us.”

Strike nodded, and grinned down at Robin. “I guess we’re rumbled,” he murmured.

“I guess we are,” she replied, twinkling up at him.

“In which case—” he said, and kissed her.

“Right, I think that’s our cue,” Nick said cheerfully to Wardle, who laughed. The two of them set off down the hallway to the front door; Shanker drained his beer and followed. Social engagements were not his thing. He’d allowed himself to be dragged along so that he could witness for himself that his friends were intact and well, and now he had other business to attend to. He followed Nick and Wardle out of the front door, bade them goodnight and sauntered off up the road.

Ilsa grinned and beckoned Hardacre to follow her to the living room, leaving the kissing couple in the kitchen. They settled themselves on the sofa and a chair to go through the legal side of the case and catch up. Ilsa admitted that her interest was likely to be continuing; Strike had passed on that Faulkner was looking to secure a lawyer who understood what had gone on, in order to take a case of wrongful arrest to the Army, and Ilsa was keen to know any details Hardacre could give her.

“I thought they’d never leave,” Strike murmured against Robin’s lips, and she giggled and squeezed him tighter.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” she said.

“I know,” he replied. “What on earth have you been up to? How did you solve it?”

“I, er, think maybe you need a few more beers before I tell you the full story,” Robin said, grinning. “I’ll tell you all over the food, save repeating it.”

He grinned back at her. “Am I not going to approve?”

Robin shrugged. “It was a little bit dangerous and a lot illegal,” she replied. “But I nailed the bastards.”

“You did indeed,” he said, and kissed her again.

...

Stuffed full of food, a glass of champagne and half a bottle of wine, all talked out and still stiff and sore from her exertions followed by two full days in the car, Robin was snoring as soon as her head hit the pillow in the Herberts’ spare room. Strike lingered for a few minutes, sat on the side of the bed, watching her sleep. He touched big fingers to her soft cheek.

Breaking and entering, climbing out of windows, driving the length of the country and back in two days, throwing an Army-trained investigator off her trail as she went. Refusing to give up on the case despite some heavy-handed scare tactics from the other side. Was there nothing this incredible, resourceful, smart, brave woman couldn’t do?

His fingers trailed lightly down her arm, brushing across the thin gauze bandage Nick had insisted upon. He’d spotted her injury during dinner, a noisy, crowded affair squeezed around the little dining table with fish and chip papers and beer bottles everywhere, and had spent some time afterwards fussing over her, cleaning the wound and muttering about stitches, but eventually contenting himself to just wrap it. Strike wondered now if Robin had earned herself yet another scar during the course of working for him.

He reached her hand where it lay on the covers in front of her and stroked across the back of it. Once their relationship had been abruptly made public, she’d stuck by his side all evening, constantly touching him as though to reassure herself that he was really here. Her hand had patted his leg under the dining table. She’d leaned against his arm sat on the sofa while she and Hardacre filled everyone in on the previous forty-eight hours. She’d tangled her fingers in his as they chatted idly while he smoked outside and stole a few kisses when no one was looking.

It had felt...perfect. Like they belonged together. Like he really had come home. For a moment Strike was back in that police van, the sudden clarity of his thoughts hitting him sideways while Robin smiled down at him, luminous in the dim light.

She stirred at his touches and snorted a little; he should leave her to sleep. He leaned to press a gentle kiss to her cheek, lingering to inhale the scent of her that he’d missed more than he’d thought was possible.

“I love you,” he whispered against her soft skin, but his only answer was another snore. He drew back, smiling softly, and tucked the covers up over her shoulder.

When Strike arrived in the kitchen a couple of minutes later, already pulling his cigarettes from his pocket, Wardle had gone, pleading a working weekend and an early start. Hardacre was looking like leaving too. He’d rebooked his hotel on the journey down to London and warned them he’d be arriving late, and his phone was piling up with messages and emails about the course of the day’s events. The Army tech experts had found everything just as Spanner had indicated and more; huge quantities of cases were going to have to be reread, files checked for tampering. He’d already been offered a leading role on the investigating team, and would be heading back to Edinburgh as soon as he’d had the chance to interview Chambers, an encounter he’d freely admitted he was looking forward to with great relish.

Ilsa grinned up at Strike. “Didn’t think we’d be seeing you again this evening.”

He smiled back, unperturbed. “Robin needs to sleep,” he replied. “I’ll give her a couple of hours before she has to try to do it with me snoring next to her.”

Nick snorted. “I’m sure she’s used to it.” He and Hardacre picked up their beers and followed Strike out onto the patio where the big detective lit a cigarette and drew on it with pleasure. No more horrible cheap cigarettes - he was back out in the real world where the supply of Benson & Hedges was plentiful. Inside, Ilsa chatted to the cats as she fed them a late-night snack and collected up empty beer bottles for the recycling.

“That’s some partner you’ve got there,” Hardacre remarked.

Strike smiled softly. “I know.”

“And she was just a temporary secretary?”

“Yup. Luckiest day of my life when they sent her to me. They’d ballsed up, too - I’d cancelled the service.”

“Wow, that is lucky.” Hardacre grinned. “I offered her a job. She turned it down.”

Strike shrugged, unfazed. “Happens all the time,” he replied. “Wardle would have her in the Met, too.”

“I’m not surprised,” Hardacre replied. He glanced at his watch and drained the last dregs of his beer. “Right, I’d better be off. I asked the taxi to be here at eleven.”

“I’ll see you out,” Nick said.

Strike and Hardacre shook hands.

“Thanks, Hardy,” Strike said, but his old colleague waved him away.

“I got you into the mess in the first place,” he said ruefully. “And then it turned out we needed Robin to help get you out again.”

Strike laughed. “I won’t hold it against you,” he said cheerfully. “But you owe me a lot of favours now.”

“I do,” Hardacre agreed fervently. “Door’s always open.”

Strike nodded, and then Hardacre was gone. Setting down his empty beer bottle on the patio table, the detective lit another cigarette, and presently Nick returned with two glasses of whisky and passed one across.

“Ilsa’s gone to bed,” he said. Strike nodded.

The two friends stood in companionable quiet in the cool night air.

“How’s the stab wound?” Nick asked presently.

“Pretty much healed, thanks. You did a good job there.”

Nick nodded. “And the leg?”

Strike grinned. “None of your business any more.”

Nick laughed. There was a pause.

“And Robin?” he asked softly.

Strike drew on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke out into the darkness.

“Robin... Robin is everything,” he said eventually, quietly.

Nick huffed a little breath around a fond smile, and clinked his whisky glass to his friend’s.


	35. Brunch

“Cormoran—” Robin woke slowly to find Strike lying next to her on the bed, fully dressed, leaning over her. A lazy smile curled across her face as she felt his lips on her collarbone, kissing softly across to her shoulder, his big fingers easing her strappy pyjama top aside to give him unimpeded access to her skin.

“Wake up, sleepyhead,” he murmured in reply, smiling against her freckles. “You’ve been asleep eleven hours.” He kissed her shoulder and began to make his way back towards her neck. “There’s a cup of tea there for you.”

Robin hummed and stretched under his ministrations, feeling a satisfying click in her back.

“And,” Strike went on, reaching the juncture of her shoulder and neck and starting to make his way up towards her jaw, mouthing gently at her, making her shiver, “we have the house to ourselves for a couple of hours.”

Her arms slid around his shoulders, hugging him close. “Do we now?”

“Mm-hm. Nick and Ilsa went shopping, said we can join them later for brunch if we want to.”

“That would be nice,” she said languidly. “I’m hungry.”

“Me too,” he agreed, kissing her jaw, her cheek, and Robin chuckled, a low, lazy sound. “I didn’t mean that kind of hungry.”

She felt him grin against her lips. “I know. I can be both.”

“You always are.”

He drew back, a twinkle in his eye. “That’s not entirely true. I don’t always think about food or sex. Sometimes I think about work.”

Robin grinned up at him, so luminously beautiful with bed-soft skin, sleepy eyes and tangled hair, it took his breath away. “You’re usually thinking about food too, when you think about work.”

“I can multi-task. It’s not just a woman’s prerogative.”

Robin chuckled and sat up. Strike rolled onto his side and gazed at her fondly as she picked up her tea and blew on it. He rested on one elbow and watched her.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good, yeah,” she nodded. “I thought I’d be stiffer, but I’m all right. I must have slept it off. Did I really sleep for eleven hours?”

“Yup.” He grinned at her. “I’ve been down and had breakfast with Nick and Ilsa, and read the whole sport supplement from the paper.”

“Wow.”

“Well, all the football bits. I didn’t bother with the Grand Prix.”

Robin nodded, smiling. “What’s the plan for today?”

Strike just gave her a broad, cheeky grin. Robin rolled her eyes a little, but her giggle was soft and throaty. “I meant after that.”

Strike shrugged. “Brunch? Then get you moved back home, I guess. I need to go and get settled back in, too, I haven’t seen my flat in weeks.”

“I could help with that.”

“Definitely.” The cheeky look was back.

Robin set her mug down and leaned to kiss him, her mouth lingering on his, her tongue flicking forward just a little, tasting him, and then she drew away. “One minute,” she promised, and clambered off the bed and went and shut herself in the bathroom across the hall.

When she came back, she laughed to see that Strike had already shed trousers and prosthesis, and was waiting for her in just his T-shirt and boxers. “Are you under the impression that you’re on a promise?”

He grinned unashamedly at her. “No, just ever hopeful where you’re concerned. But if you want to go back to sleep, that’s fine by me. I’m always up for a nap too.”

Smiling, Robin climbed onto the bed and over him, lying on top of him with her hands sliding into his hair, her body pressed along the length of his, enjoying the feel of his bulk beneath her. It felt weird for his hair not to be long enough for her to tangle her fingers into his curls. His beard, unshaven since the previous morning, was already returning with vigour, though.

“I don’t want to go back to sleep,” she murmured, and kissed him, her arms around his neck. His hands stroked up around her back, sliding down to her backside.

They kissed for a slow, languid minute, and then Strike wrapped an arm around her waist and rolled them both so that he was on top.

“Where was I?” he muttered, bending his head to her collarbone again. He ran his lips across to her shoulder, and goosebumps washed across her, making her arch beneath him and tremble.

“Cormoran—” His name on her lips, moaned with passion or pleasure, had always been his undoing. Strike growled a little and sucked at her shoulder, smelling her, tasting her.

“God, I missed you,” he murmured into her soft skin.

Robin smiled, hugged him closer. “I missed you too.”

Dappled light slanted in from the window that looked out over the garden, casting patterns through the leaves of the big oak tree that partly shaded the back of the house. Strike undressed Robin slowly and kissed the shapes that danced across her body, drawing her top and shorts from her reverently, running his lips over the skin he revealed.

He pressed gentle kisses to the healing grazes on her stomach. “What happened?”

“Fell off a roof,” Robin replied, and he chuckled against her and shook his head a little. “You’re amazing. I can’t believe you climbed out of an upstairs window.”

“I looked like a cat burglar too, all in black with my beanie.”

“Is that so? That’s a look I’d like to see.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her.

Robin laughed softly. “I’ll wear it for you sometime.” Her hands explored under his T-shirt, sliding across familiar contours, and then her fingers paused, stroking over the raised red scar on his side. “That’s new. What happened to you?”

“I got a little bit stabbed,” he admitted, drawing back to let her look.

Robin gazed at the scar, fingers softly touching. “How do you get ‘a little bit’ stabbed?”

He shrugged. “With a razor blade, I think. Nick patched me up.”

“He’s done a good job.”

“Yeah.”

Her hands continued stroking, and Strike wondered if there was any other woman in his life who wouldn’t have reacted with shock and horror to the thought that he had been stabbed. Matter-of-fact, Robin had just taken it in her stride. In fact now she was gently rolling him, bending her head to kiss the new scar, to acquaint herself with it, and what could have been a passion-killing moment was suddenly a sensuous one. She moved on over his body, kissing across his stomach and chest, breathing him, carding her fingers through his dense hair, pushing his T-shirt higher and higher.

“I missed the smell of you,” she said suddenly, and Strike smiled softly, sitting up to pull his T-shirt off over his head.

“I missed the smell of you, too,” he replied, shifting back down next to her and burying his face in her neck again. “Just...here.” His voice was muffled against the soft skin under her jaw, and Robin gasped and shivered.

“And here,” he went on, moving down the side of her neck.

“Cormoran...”

“And here,” he added, grinning as he nuzzled his way across her breast, his lips exploring the swell of her, until he reached her nipple and gently licked across it. Robin groaned her pleasure and shuddered beneath him.

Strike seemed in no hurry, despite how long they had been apart. In the gentle morning light, he kissed her softly all over, his big, calloused fingers tracing across her skin with a velvet-light touch. Robin sighed and shivered under his attentions as he slowly brought her higher and higher until she was trembling with anticipation, every inch of her kissed, stroked skin tingling. Her hands had explored what she could reach of him too, and now she stroked across his firm backside as he lay next to her, his tongue exploring her mouth and his cock jutting urgently across her hip, but still he moved slowly.

“Cormoran, I want you,” Robin groaned, letting her thighs fall open, longing for him to touch her, and he obliged, his big hand slowly sliding down across the softness of her stomach, his mouth still on hers, tongues twining gently.

He stroked across her core with feather-light fingers, and Robin moaned into his mouth, arching against him as the pleasure pulsed through her. He growled a little back at her, kissing her harder, his fingers sliding slowly up to her clit. His fingertips teased gently back and forth until Robin was forced to pull back from the kiss, gasping for breath, shaking with need, aching for him.

“Cormoran, please—”

He groaned a little in answer, rocking against her as his control began to shred, and Robin tugged at his hip. “Inside me, please,” she whispered raggedly, and he grunted his agreement and rolled gently onto her.

He paused, his arms around her shoulders and his cock straining against her, and kissed her again, and Robin kissed him back hungrily, her tongue thrusting into his mouth and her hips canting, seeking him.

Strike drew back a little and Robin opened languid eyes, gazing up at him, blinking at the look of utter adoration he was giving her.

“You’re incredible, do you know that?” he asked, shifting himself forward and slowly, slowly entering her. They both moaned with pleasure as he slid all the way in, flexing his hips to hers, pushing as deep as he could.

Trembling, Robin clutched him close. “So are you,” she gasped. “God, Cormoran, that’s so good.” Her muscles fluttered around him, making him shudder in her arms. She tugged at his backside again, wanting him closer still, barely able to tell where he ended and she began.

“Mm,” he agreed. Buried deep within her, unmoving, he bent his head to kiss her again, soft and sweet, just a gentle touch of his tongue sweeping across hers. Then he drew back and met her gaze again, and the naked emotion in his eyes brought tears to hers.

“I love you,” Strike whispered, and Robin’s throat tightened painfully.

“I love you too,” she managed, tears spilling from her eyes, and he bent to kiss them away as they tracked down the side of her face towards her neck.

Still kissing her soft skin, he rocked back and then thrust slowly forward again, the slide of him inside her making Robin tremble and moan.

“I love you,” he muttered again, into her neck now, his voice ragged with emotion or pleasure or both.

“I love you too,” she replied, her hands splaying across his back, her thighs opening wider, her legs hooking over his.

“God, Robin, you feel so good,” Strike groaned as he drew back and moved into her again, unhurried, and Robin, suffused with pleasure, could only hum her agreement, her hands sliding down to his backside as he rocked against her.

Slowly he picked up a rhythm, long, gentle sweeps of his body against hers, murmuring his love into her skin as he kissed her cheek, her jaw, her hair. Shivering with pleasure beneath him as he built her achingly slowly, Robin moaned in answer and wrapped her arms and legs around him, waves of delight rolling through her.

Their pleasure built inexorably; eventually the passion took them. Robin thrilled to the feel and sound of Strike gradually losing control, his ragged whispers breaking into low groans as he thrust harder and harder against her and anticipation drew her whole body tight. Shaking with need, she felt her orgasm swell up suddenly, unstoppable, breaking over her. She clung to him with a soft cry as the pulses swept through her and he drove her through it, pleasure that seemed to go on and on until with a fierce grunt he came, jerking against her and gasping his own pleasure and finally collapsing, spent, in her arms.

Awestruck, Robin lay beneath him, holding him tight, aftershocks still shuddering through her, and let the tears roll slowly from her eyes. Trembling on top of her, Strike was still kissing her neck, her cheek, licking her tears away. Gradually their breathing slowed, their clutching hands relaxed, and then his mouth was on hers again, kissing her languidly, a gentle ending.

He drew back and opened his eyes, gazing down at her with a look of such love that Robin thought she might cry all over again, and then he smiled.

“All right?” His voice was husky.

Robin nodded. “Very, very all right,” she whispered.

Strike eased back and pulled out of her, shifting gently to lie next to her and pull her into his arms; Robin wrapped herself around him with a deep sigh of contentment. His arms tightened around her and she snuggled closer.

They lay for long minutes, hands languidly stroking, breathing one another, until Robin’s stomach, deprived of food now for well over twelve hours, growled a little. Strike’s rumbled in answer, and Robin giggled.

“Brunch?” She pulled herself up, propped up on one elbow and smiling down at him. He looked incredible, his uneven lips slightly swollen from kissing her, his eyes heavy and full of contentment, the bloom of pleasure still on his cheeks.

He grinned up at her. “Sounds like a good plan.”

“Shower first, though,” Robin replied, and Strike laughed, a hoarse note to his voice still.

“Probably also a good idea.”

Robin leaned down to kiss him again, slow and tender, and they kissed for long minutes until her stomach complained again and Strike drew back with a grin.

“We need to feed you.”

“We do,” she replied. “Who’s showering first?”

Strike chuckled. “We could shower together.”

“And then we’d never make brunch.”

“This is, sadly, true.”

“Well, right now I need the food more,” Robin said with a fond smile.

“Why don’t you sneak in and shower in the en suite, and I’ll take the main bathroom?” Strike suggested. It had never been spoken of, but after he and Charlotte had split up and he’d started spending more time at the Herberts’, grab rails had quietly appeared in their main bathroom, making his stays here much easier, and indeed safer after several beers. He knew that if he mentioned it, Ilsa would say they were for her dad, but he didn’t need to ask the question. “I’m sure Nick and Ilsa wouldn’t mind.”

Robin nodded. “Good plan.” And with a final, chaste kiss, she rolled off him to go and shower, happiness fizzing in her veins and sated pleasure buzzing through her body.


	36. Curry Night

The following Friday, at Ilsa and Nick’s invitation, a larger than usual group assembled for curry night. Graham Hardacre had finished his initial interviews in London, including spending a day taking full statements from Strike and Robin, and was ready to go back to Edinburgh, but had agreed to stay an extra night to attend. Eric Wardle and Vanessa Ekwensi arrived straight from work. Spanner had been persuaded to come along and stay the night. On a whim, Ilsa had also invited Gary Faulkner, with whom she had already had a couple of meetings to start to prepare his case against the Army. She had even tried to persuade Shanker to agree to pop round for a beer, but with two police officers and two Army investigators attending, he had turned her down with a scornful snort. Unperturbed, Ilsa had laughed down the phone at him. Shanker didn’t seem at all bothered to know the details of the case, the ins and outs - presumably breaking into a house and stealing things, nicking a car, having one’s home burgled, were all unremarkable aspects of life to him.

Strike and Robin arrived late, which was normal for him and unusual for her; Robin went scarlet when Ilsa inquired as to the reason for their tardiness, making Ilsa cackle and Strike grin and tell Robin she needed to work on her poker face.

“You’re supposed to say we were busy on a case,” he told her, and Robin grinned up at him cheekily and then turned to Ilsa.

“Okay, something came up at work,” she said with a wink. “And it needed attending to immediately.”

It was Strike’s turn to blush, and Ilsa squeaked and put her hands over her ears. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry I asked! I shall know better next time!” She grinned fondly at them. “Come on in and choose your food, we’re waiting to order.”

They chose from the menu quickly, and then made their introductions while Nick phoned the huge curry order in. It was the first time Robin had actually come face to face with Faulkner, and he shook her hand heartily and then gave her a hesitant peck on the cheek.

“Thank you,” he said fervently. “It feels so good to have my name cleared. I’d given up.”

Robin grinned up at him. “You’re welcome,” she replied. “All part of a day’s work.”

“I want to hear all about it,” he said. “Ilsa told me a little, but I’m so far out of the loop. I’m still not sure why Strike was even in Battersea with me in the first place.”

Ilsa pressed a glass of wine into Robin’s hand and a beer into Strike’s. “Let’s all go and sit down,” she said, “and you can tell the full story.”

“Food’s going to be half an hour,” Nick said, hanging up the phone. “I’ll pop down for it in a bit.” On normal curry nights, he and Strike would stroll down to fetch the food, or one of the Herberts would go down in the car.

The assembled party was too big for the Herberts’ lounge; instead Ilsa had assembled all the chairs she could find, and they crowded around the dining table. Much chat and passing of drinks ensued while everyone found a place. Robin hugged Vanessa and reached across to shake hands with Hardacre and Wardle, reflecting that she’d miss their little gang and the regular meetings. Spanner, who was normally particularly attentive to Robin and found any excuse to sit next to her, had received a swift, fierce glare from Strike and had chosen to sit at the other end of the table next to his brother. Robin pretended she hadn’t seen the interaction, but a small smile pulled at the corner of her mouth as she sat down next to Strike and he laid a possessive arm along the back of her chair.

“Right,” Faulkner said once they were all sat. He turned to Strike. “So why were you even in prison in the first place?”

“It was Hardy’s plan, he came to me with it.” Strike waved his beer at his former colleague.

Hardacre nodded ruefully. “Yeah, and one thread of my ever-widening investigation is why,” he replied. “I’m having trouble, would you believe, tracking down exactly where the original idea came from, nobody seems to know. Were you planted by Chambers deliberately, in that he somehow managed to subtly engineer it, or did it happen more organically in that he just took advantage of the situation to get his revenge on you and cement Gary’s demise?”

“I was pretty cemented already,” Faulkner said. “I wasn’t going to get out of it now if I hadn’t before. I was just keeping my head down and hoping I’d find a job when I got out.”

“Well, I may never get to the bottom of it,” Hardacre replied. “But I guess as long as we solved the case to everyone’s satisfaction, that’s not so important. It doesn’t make much difference in terms of the outcome for Chambers.”

“So when did you suspect that all wasn’t as it seemed?” Faulkner asked Strike.

“As I was arrested,” Strike said promptly. “Gough was there. Pretty stupid move on his part, I guess he thought I wouldn’t recognise him after all these years.”

“More fool him,” Robin murmured.

“Exactly,” Strike replied. “He’d been in on trying to frame you back in Cyprus,” he added to Faulkner. “I had a quiet word with one of the lads on the case before they were all moved on, and he was terrified. Said they’d faked the pieces of evidence against you, on his orders, and were afraid they’d get in trouble now. They had no idea it went any higher than Gough. Nor did I at that point.”

“So I took those pieces out before we even started,” he went on. “And then Chambers came in and took over the oversight of the project. I guess he wanted to make sure framing you was done properly, having had to move his minion out. I assume he moved Gough because there was a danger one of the lads would talk. They knew they were in over their heads, they’d asked for more senior officers to take over, that’s why me and Hardy were assigned to the case.”

“So he must have worked out that you’d done that?” Hardacre asked.

Strike shrugged. “I don’t know what he knew when,” he replied. “But he must have worked out it was me, because he came to me and demanded I fake that interview with Gary, saying he confessed.”

Faulkner stared at him. “Why did you do it?”

Strike sighed. “I refused at first,” he said. “But then it occurred to me that if I looked like I was playing along, I might get to the bottom of what he was up to. So I did it but I made him sign off on it so his mark was on it too. And then I just quietly never put it in, and managed to keep him from realising that until we’d wrapped the case. He thought he had three pieces of evidence pinning it all on you, and he had none.”

“God, he was livid.” Hardacre chuckled, remembering.

“He was,” Strike agreed, and took a swig of his beer. “Not enough to drop himself in it, though, sadly. I couldn’t prove anything, so I just hid the stuff and moved on.”

“Why did you never tell me?” Hardacre asked him now.

Strike sighed. “I didn’t have a lot to tell. Plus I didn’t want you to end up being implicated in me falsifying stuff. You’d already covered for me on the Brockbank thing, I didn’t want you to have to do it again, and this was a much more dodgy thing to have to explain. And then I figured, all’s well that ends well. Kind of.”

“And unfortunately for me,” Faulkner said ruefully, “by the time he’d put me on a few more dodgy cases and finally managed to get me framed up properly and sent down, you’d done your stint in Afghanistan and left.”

“Yeah,” Strike said. “I might have twigged that you’d been framed and done some digging, but I never heard, I was out of the picture.”

Vanessa leaned forward. “So how does this all relate to now?” she asked.

“We put Oggy into the prison with Gary, in theory to find out what he had planned next,” Hardacre explained. “The feeling was he’d still have contacts we could bring down, that there might still be drugs ops going on within the ranks.”

“But actually, Chambers’ plan was to pin the original case on me, too,” Strike went on. “Tie my name to Faulkner’s. He’d somehow copied my fake interview with him at the time, and kept it - his own insurance, I guess.”

“And that then ended up in the digital file,” Robin said.

“Yeah, and a couple of things proving Gary’s innocence went missing,” Hardarce added. “And then that’s why the hard copy went walkabout - so no one could prove the files didn’t match.”

“Who tampered with the online file?” Robin asked.

“That’s ongoing,” Hardarce replied. “They’re blaming each other for that. My money is on Gough, though. It would have been pretty risky for Chambers, in case it implicated him too. He probably wanted the pieces Oggy had, the ones with Gough’s name on.”

“Which would be why Gough did it that way,” Robin mused. “Clever. How will you know?”

“The digital evidence will show where it was done from and when,” Spanner cut in, and Hardacre nodded.

“I’ll find that out when I get back up to Edinburgh,” he said. “Via Catterick, to talk to Gough on the way.”

“So it was Chambers who went through the office and Cormoran’s flat, and ransacked my flat?” Robin asked.

“Well, he’ll have sent someone to do it for him, but yeah,” Hardacre replied. “Although trashing your place was thuggish, I think that was Gough trying to scare you off.”

Strike snorted. “Idiot.”

Robin grinned. “That just made me crosser,” she said, and Strike dropped his hand onto her shoulder, squeezing it lightly.

“But then you magically produced the missing files?” Faulkner asked her.

Robin nodded. “I, er, broke into Chambers’ house here in London, and he just had them in his desk.” She didn’t miss Faulkner’s surprise, nor the admiring glance he threw her.

“Hah!” Vanessa said, grinning. “That never happens in the films.”

“Yeah, I guess he thought we wouldn’t be that bold,” Robin replied.

“He should have known better,” Strike said, and Robin detected a faint hint of pride in his voice. Officially, he disapproved of her taking risks with her own safety, but she knew he was secretly proud of her success.

“One thing, though, Hardy,” Strike went on, turning his attention to his former partner. “You said Chambers was in Germany. What was he doing popping to the theatre here in London?”

“I know, I’ve been looking at that,” Hardacre replied. “Officially he’s still stationed in Germany, living in officers’ quarters on base. Pretty convenient he’s on leave and here at his London home while all this was going on. I’m just glad his Edinburgh office was closed up and he hadn’t been for weeks. Not that I think we’re going to find anything there, but they’re looking.”

There was a brief pause.

“So what’s next?” Ilsa asked.

Strike shrugged. “Our involvement is done, I think?”

Hardacre nodded. “It’s an internal Army matter now,” he replied. He glanced at Faulkner. “Are you still going to bring a case?”

Faulkner looked at Ilsa for a moment. “Undecided,” he replied. “They want to talk to me, ostensibly about what really went on, get my side. I know you’ve interviewed me,” he went on, seeing Hardacre’s puzzled frown, “but higher up. I have a feeling I might be offered a settlement, which obviously I shall be discussing with my solicitor.”

Ilsa grinned. “Two years in prison is worth a lot,” she said. “Don’t accept too little.”

Faulkner chuckled. “I won’t,” he replied. “Mostly I’m just glad to have my name cleared. I can get a proper job again, instead of facing a future of unemployment, or as a bouncer or a security guard if I was lucky.”

“Any idea what you’ll do?” Wardle asked.

Faulkner shrugged. “Not the Army, obviously,” he said drily. “Even if they’d have me back, they can fuck off.”

“The police might have you,” Wardle suggested. Faulkner nodded slowly.

“I might give that a try,” he mused.

“Where did you hide the evidence?” Strike asked Robin suddenly, as Nick got up to fetch the crate of beer and pass more bottles round. “If you think the office and both our flats were gone through? How come they didn’t find them?”

“I sent them to Masham,” Robin said, grinning. “Mum and Dad had no idea they had twice-stolen military documents sitting on the sideboard in the hallway.”

Strike stared at her in horror. “You gave the evidence that could keep me out of prison to Royal Mail?”

Wardle gave a shout of laughter. “That’s exactly what I said!” he cried.

Robin gave them both a haughty look. “And as I said to Eric, I sent them recorded delivery,” she replied. Strike shook his head, laughing.

“There’s just one question I have, though,” Ilsa said suddenly to Strike. “A tiny detail, but it’s been bothering me.”

“Go on,” he said, swigging his beer and patting his pockets for his cigarettes.

“The Dutch thing,” she said. “When you were talking about Gough. You said the still life had a cauliflower, which we got, the cauliflower ear. But you said it was Dutch.”

Strike grinned. “His first name is Vince,” he said. “Vincent. Vincent Gough. Like Vincent van Gogh.”

“Ahhh!” Ilsa cried. “I get it now. He didn’t do a painting with a cauliflower in, though?”

Strike laughed. “No, that was just to reference his ear. Come on, I was thinking on my feet. Foot,” he corrected with a wink.

“Right,” he went on, looking around the table. “I think that brings us to the end of the story? Smokers, to the patio.”

“I guess that’s my cue to go and get the food,” Nick said, standing. “Come on, Spanner, you can come and help.”

Strike, Faulkner and Wardle all made their way to the patio, extracting cigarettes and lighters from pockets. Hardacre followed - he wasn’t a smoker, but he would rather stand and chat with the men. Nick and Spanner were already heading down the hallway to the front door, chatting about FIFA and the revenge match that would be played later after all the guests had departed.

Ilsa, Robin and Vanessa all grinned at one another, and Ilsa passed the wine bottle round for them to top up their glasses.

“Right,” Vanessa said, filling her glass and passing the bottle on. “Never mind the case, we have to talk about the really important stuff.” She swung to face Robin. “You and Corm, eh?”

Robin blushed a little, a soft smile creeping over her face. “Yeah.”

Vanessa clinked her glass to her friend’s. “Way to go, girl! How long has that been going on?”

Robin shrugged. “Since a few weeks before he went into prison. Not long.”

“How is it?” Ilsa asked softly, and grinned at Robin’s dreamy smile.

“It’s...perfect,” Robin said, trying not to blush too hard. She and Strike had certainly been making up for lost time in the week since his release. She had a suspicion that if it weren’t for the need for propriety, for their client meetings and for Barclay and Hutchins reporting in and Hannah at her desk every day, the office might not have opened at all this week. As it was, Strike had declared early closing tonight and sent Hannah home at half past four, much to their secretary’s delight. And even as the detectives had straightened their clothing and Strike’s desk, picking up scattered pens and cast-aside files, he had been bemoaning the curry night they had agreed to and saying he couldn’t wait to take her to bed.

But it was his new openness she loved. Before this case started, they had been happy, certainly, exploring one another, spending a lot of time together, admittedly a lot of it in bed. That hadn’t changed, but what had was Strike. He was demonstrative suddenly - not overly, in a cloying way, but happy to have their relationship known, to hold her hand on the street or gently tug her into a kiss when she brought him tea at his desk. She liked it.

Ilsa smiled at her. “I’m not going to say ‘I told you so’,” she said, “except I did.”

Vanessa laughed. “It was about time,” she added.

“It was,” Robin agreed.

“Right,” Ilsa said, standing. “Let’s start assembling plates and cutlery. The misters Herbert will be back pretty quickly with the food, it’s only down the road.”

...

“All right?” Strike gave Robin a fond smile as she stepped out onto the patio to join him, extending the arm that wasn’t engaged in smoking for her to fold herself into. It was late, and all the other guests had gone; Nick and Spanner had retired to the living room to set up their match and Ilsa and Robin had been chatting at the kitchen table.

“Mm-hm,” she replied, sliding her arms around him. “Bit tipsy, actually.”

Strike exhaled smoke away into the garden and then grinned down at her. “All the better to have my wicked way with you.”

Robin squeezed him and smiled up at him. “You don’t need me to be tipsy for that,” she replied. “But yeah, I think we’d better go. Ilsa’s yawning, I think she’s waiting to go to bed.”

“She’s not the only one,” Strike growled, leaning to press a kiss to her full lips. Robin hummed and kissed him back.

“I think we should keep Hannah,” she said suddenly, pulling back a little. “I like her, and I like that we can both spend more time on cases. We can fit two desks in my office.”

“I agree,” Strike replied. “She’s good, efficient and capable and discreet. We’ll need a secretary at some point, and we’d be hard pushed to find anyone as good as her.” He took another pull on his cigarette, and Robin snuggled closer under his big coat. Quiet settled over them for a few minutes while he smoked.

Presently Robin took a deep breath. “While we’re tipsy—” she murmured, looking up at him and blushing a little.

“Mm,” he replied, turning his head away to take a last drag of his cigarette, then dropping it to join the others in the old plant pot the Herberts kept on their patio for just this very purpose.

“I was thinking about the, er, police van,” she muttered, pink-cheeked now. “On the way to court.”

Strike grinned down at her, wrapping her in both arms now, pulling her against him and wrapping his big coat around them both. “That’s a journey I won’t forget in a hurry. It kept me warm through many a long, cold night in prison - what a cliche, eh?” He chuckled.

Robin giggled against him, snuggling closer. “Well, I just wondered...” She trailed off, hesitant, and Strike gazed down at her adoringly.

“What is it?” he encouraged.

“It’s a bit—” Robin glanced towards the house, checking the patio door was indeed closed.

Strike’s grin broadened. “Ellacott, have you got a dirty little secret you want to share with me?” he asked, delighted. “Or maybe a fantasy?” he guessed, and thrilled to the way her face went redder. He leaned down and kissed her, brief and fierce. “Now I really want to know.”

“Have you—” Robin took a deep breath. “Have you still got those handcuffs you nicked from the SIB?”

His gaze darkened as he looked down at her, his breath hitching a little in his throat, and he pulled her closer still so that she could feel the effect her words were having on him, stirring against her thigh.

“I have,” he said huskily. “They’re in a box under my bed.”

“Oh,” Robin replied, grinning through her blushes. “That’s...handy.”

“Isn’t it just?” His voice seemed to have dropped impossibly deeper. He paused, gazing into her eyes. “Is this...something you’re familiar with, or something new?”

Robin shrugged. “Something new,” she said. “I don’t know if I’d want to be— And Matt would have never—” Overcome, she buried her face in his navy half-zip jumper that she loved so much.

Strike grinned and kissed the top of her head. “So you want me to wear them?”

Robin peeped up at him through her eyelashes. “Would you? Would you mind?”

He pretended to consider. “Hmm, would I mind lying back, helpless, while a beautiful, sexy, incredible woman who I trust utterly has her wicked way with me?” He chuckled. “I think I could cope with that.”

Robin grinned back. “And maybe, one day, I might—”

He stopped her words with a kiss. “Only if you actively want to,” he said. “It’s not a reciprocal thing, you don’t have to do it just because I do. We do the things we both want, end of.” He gave her another cheeky grin. “But I am definitely, definitely on board for this one.”

Robin smiled up at him, relieved, beautiful. “Shall we go, then?”

“Immediately,” Strike replied, grinning, and they turned back to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That’s all, folks! Lula’s longest ever piece, all for one scene 😂😂 Thanks for reading along and all the love and comments 😍😍


End file.
